tihvary  of  €Ke  theological  ^tmxnaxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of 
Harold  McAfee  Robinson,  D.D. 

BV  4596  7b8  H68  1915 
Howard,  Philip  E.  1870-1946 
Their  call  to  service 


Their  Call  to 


A  Study  in  the  Partnership 
of  Business  mid  Religion 


By 
PHILIP   E.    HOWARD 


mm 


Philadelphia 

The  Westminster  Press 

19^5 


Copyright,  191  5, 
By  F.  M.  Braselmann 


Contents 

PAGE 

A  Word  on  the  Threshold     .         .         v 

I.     Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  .         .         i 

Soldier  and  Pioneer  Educator. 

II.     Sir  George  Williams        ...       19 

Founder  of  the   Young  Men^s   Christian 
Association. 

III.  George  H.  Stuart    ....       33 

A  Christian  Leader  in  **  The  Heroic  Age 
of  America.^* 

IV.  Stephen  Paxson         ....       49 

Pioneer  and  Light- Giver  in  the  Middle 
West. 

V.     John  H.  Converse     ....       61 

Builder    of  Locomotives    and    Christian 
Enterprise. 

VI.     John  S.  Huyler         ....       77 
Friend  of  the  Outcast. 

VII.     David  D.  Wood         ....       91 

The  Blind  Musician  and  Teacher. 

VIII.     William  E.  Dodge   ....      105 

A  Master  of  Big  Business  and  Philan- 
thropy. 

IX.     Cyrus  H.  McCormick       .         .         .123 

Inventor  and  Business  Builder. 

X.     Henry  Clay  Trumbull    .         .         -139 

Business   Man,  Missionary,  Army    Chap- 
lain, and  Editor. 
[iii] 


A  Word  on  the  Threshold 

If  the  readers  of  tliis  little  book  derive  even  one- 
half  the  inspiration  from  it  that  the  writer  has  de- 
rived from  his  personal,  or  his  indirect,  acquaint- 
ance with  those  whose  lives  are  briefly  told  herein, 
the  book  will  not  fail  of  its  purpose. 

It  is  an  excursion  into  life,  life  of  varied  scope 
and  significance,  particularly  for  the  sake  of  young 
men  whose  eyes  are  eagerly  scanning  the  road 
ahead,  and  who  want  to  win  to  the  uplands  in  clean 
and  straightforward  fashion,  without  trampling 
others  under  by  the  way. 

The  men  of  this  book  had  no  easy  time  of  it,  as 
each  followed  God's  imperative  call  to  his  own  soul. 
How  they  fared,  and  how  others  fared  because  of 
them  and  their  obedience,  is  in  each  case  a  very 
plain  and  practical  exhibit  of  effects  produced  by 
known  causes. 

These  men  proved  by  their  deeds  that  one's  busi- 
ness or  profession  and  one's  religion  are  partners 
which  are  able  to  get  on  eminently  well  together, 
for  big  ends  in  varied  service. 

Where  the  writer  has  known  them  personally  he 
has  drawn  upon  his  knowledge  of  them  and  their 
ideals  and  practices.  Where  he  has  not  known 
them,  he  has  had  recourse  to  the  work  of  others, 
whose  books  alone  can  give  with  needed  fullness  the 

[V] 


A  WORD  ON  THE  THRESHOLD 


life  stories,  a  siDgle  phase  of  which  forms  the  motive 
of  this  group  of  studies — Their  Call  to  Service. 

Perhaps  in  the  reading  some  one  may  also  hear 
his  own  call  to  the  kind  of  service  God  has  in  store 
for  him. 


[vi] 


I 

Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Soldier  and  Pioneer  Educator 


One  of  the  books  without  which  a  young  man's 
library  is  incomplete  is  *^ Samuel  Chapman  Arm- 
strongy^  by  Edith  Armstrong  Talbot. 

The  opening  incident  of  this  chapter  was  told  to 
the  writer  by  Miss  Annie  Beecher  Scovilky  of  the 
Hampton  Institute  staff. 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

A  FIRE  was  raging  in  the  big  mill  at  Hampton 
Institute.  The  whole  school  had  dropped  books  and 
tools,  and  every  one  had  turned  out  to  do  what 
might  be  done  to  save  the  building. 

A  man  in  a  wheel  chair  watched  the  scene  with 
keen  and  eager  eyes.  Nothing  escaped  his  glance. 
He  saw  how  courageously  the  boys  swarmed  to  the 
roof  of  the  building,  and  how  vigorously  and  in- 
telligently they  fought  the  flames  ;  but  he  could  not 
help  seeing  that  the  fire  fighters  were  in  danger,  and 
that  the  tin  roof  was  lifting  and  twisting  under  the 
heat,  and  might  at  any  moment  curl  out  over  the 
roof's  edge,  upon  the  boys  on  the  ladders.  Sud- 
denly the  tin  lifted  clear  of  its  fastenings,  rose  like 
swelling  canvas,  and  pitched  over  the  edge  of  the 
roof,  not  upon,  but  between  the  groups  of  fighters. 
Then  the  fire  was  gradually  brought  under  control. 

The  man  in  the  wheel  chair  watched  all  this. 
When  it  was  plain  that  the  fire  would  do  no  more 
damage,  he  turned  to  a  man  who  had  come  from  a 
long  distance  to  see  him,  and  began  to  discuss  plans 
for  a  big  agricultural  building  for  the  school. 
While  the  fire  was  on,  his  whole  being  was  centered 
on  that.  When  the  danger  was  over  the  keen-eyed 
invalid  turned  at  once  to  the  next  duty.  It  was  not 
[3] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


the  first  time  that  General  AruistroDg  had  shown 
such  a  spirit  of  eager  duty-doiug. 

He  was  a  man  singularly  well  prepared  for  the 
task  with  which  his  name  will  always  be  associated, 
the  founding  and  upbuilding  of  Hampton  Institute, 
that  pioneer  school  of  industrial  education  for  Ne- 
groes. Few  men  of  our  time  could  look  back  over 
a  more  marvelous  preparation  for  his  chief  life 
work  than  General  Armstrong.  He  was  led  into  a 
new  and  singularly  trying  work  of  reconstruction,  of 
breaking  new  ground  in  education,  of  reconciling 
conflicting  ideas  as  between  North  and  South,  and  it 
is  hard  to  see  how  his  preparation  for  that  work 
could  have  been  more  direct.  This  did  not  appear 
in  advance,  for  he  never  in  his  preparatory  days 
seemed  to  be  at  all  sure  of  his  calling.  But  birth, 
and  schooling,  and  playtime,  and  war  time  all  gave 
of  their  wealth  of  equipment  for  his  great  undertak- 
ing. 

Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  was  born  on  the 
island  of  Maui,  Hawaiian  Islands,  January  30,  1839, 
the  son  of  Eichard  and  Clarisa  Armstrong,  mission- 
aries of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions.  He  was  born  in  a  time  of 
tremendous  religious  enthusiasm,  when  great  revi- 
vals caused  the  people  in  general  to  give  up  heathen- 
ism and  to  turn  to  Christ.  Public  offices  were  some- 
times occupied  by  missionaries.  At  the  time  of 
Eichard  Armstrong's  death  King  Kamchamcha  said 
of  him  : 

"Doctor  Armstrong  has  been  spoken  of  as  Min- 
ister of  Public  Instruction,  and  subsequently 
[4] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

President  of  the  Board  of  EducatioD,  but  we  have 
only  partly  described  the  important  offices  which  he 
filled.  He  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Nobles, 
and  of  the  King's  Privy  Council,  Secretary  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  Oahu  College,  Trustee  of  the 
Queen's  Hospital,  Executive  officer  of  the  Bible  and 
Tract  Society,  and  deeply  interested  in  developing 
the  agricultural  resources  of  the  kingdom.  No 
other  government  officer  or  missionary  was  brought 
into  such  close  intimacy  with  the  native  as  a  whole." 

When,  shortly  after  Samuel's  birth,  the  family 
moved  to  Honolulu,  they  came  into  the  main  cur- 
rent of  Hawaiian  i^olitical,  religious  and  educational 
movement.  There  was  austerity  in  the  home  life  in 
essential  things,  but  with  plenty  of  play  for  the 
youngsters.  General  Armstrong's  biographer  gives 
an  enchanting  picture  of  the  boy's  life  in  that  land 
of  fertile  pleasantness.  Did  any  youngster  ever 
have  a  more  glorious  time  of  it  ? 

"In  such  a  home  setting  one  can  imagine  little 
Samuel  barefooted,  clad  in  faded  blue  denim,  among 
his  crowd  of  brothers  and  sisters  and  playmates, 
blond  and  slim,  full  of  his  father's  fun,  with  long, 
shaggy  hair  tossed  back  from  dancing  eyes,  rushing 
in  and  out  of  the  water  after  his  little  boats,  to  make 
and  sail  which  was  the  greatest  delight  of  Honolulu 
boys,  with  their  facilities  of  reef-locked  harbor,  and 
constant  trade  wind.  As  marbles,  chess,  and  cards 
were  not  allowed,  and  as  football  was  unknown, 
baseball  (in  which  Samuel  was  never  proficient^, 
swimming,  sailing,  and  riding  were  the  sports  among 
boys,  followed,  as  the  players  advanced  from  the  age 
[5] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


of  blae-deDim  trousers  into  that  of  great  care  for 
ueckties,  by  choir  practice,  debating  clubs  and 
horseback  rides  by  night.  There  were  glorious 
dashes  over  the  moonlit  sands,  twenty  or  thirty 
couples  of  boys  and  girls  abreast,  when  the  game 
was  to  have  one  extra  man,  then  break  the  ranks 
and  let  all  try  for  a  place  in  the  line  with  one  of  the 
gi  rls.  There  were  week-long  excursions  and  upward 
dashes  to  the  cool  mountain  tops,  where  the  cataracts 
had  their  birth,  and  whence  one  could  overlook  the 
ocean  rising  on  all  sides  to  the  level  of  the  eye  like 
a  great  blue  saucer." 

The  General  himself  described  those  days  in  this 
way  : 

"  The  large  crop  of  boys  that  swarmed  about  the 
mission  had  the  usual  piratical  instincts  of  their 
kind,  and,  although  we  were  all  subjected  to  the 
severest  Puritanic  disciiDline,  we  managed  to  execute 
occasional  raids  on  the  barrel  of  lump  sugar  in  the 
mission  depository.  The  '  Maternal  Association  ' 
took  up  the  more  hopeless  cases  of  those  who  played 
checkers  or  said  '  By  George ! '  The  boys  were 
thrown  into  convulsions  when  one  of  their  number 
reported  hearing  an  excited  missionary  father  say 
'  By  Jingo  ! '  .  .  .  We  had  no  stables,  and  out 
in  the  wild  pasture  had  to  catch  with  the  lasso  every 
horse  we  rode  ;  and  everybody  rode — men,  women, 
children.  .  .  .  Nothing,  however,  was  more 
permanently  popular  than  swimming  in  the  great 
deep  mountain  basins.  The  great  feat  was  to  jump 
from  the  cliff,  some  forty  feet,  into  the  depths  below, 
where  we  played  like  fishes." 
[6] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

*'He  never  forgot,''  says  his  biographer,  ^Hhe 
fan  of  being  a  boy,  never,  in  fact,  quite  got  over 
being  a  boy." 

With  all  his  fun,  Samuel  thoroughly  enjoyed  his 
school  work,  in  the  Eoyal  School  at  Punahow, 
which  was  later  called  Oahu  College.  He  named 
his  sailboat  ''Telemachus,"  and  his  horses  for 
heroes  discovered  in  his  studies.  He  read  text- 
books very  much  as  some  boys  would  read  stories, 
because  he  liked  to  do  it.  One  who  had  been  a 
student  at  Oahu  College,  Joseph  S.  Emerson,  de- 
scribed in  The  Outlook  Armstrong's  readiness  and 
ability  in  the  varied  use  of  his  splendid  powers  of 
body  and  mind.  He  was  put  in  charge  of  a  geom- 
etry class,  in  the  absence  of  the  teacher,  for  a  con- 
siderable time. 

Mr.  Emerson  said :  "On  taking  the  class  in 
geometry,  from  the  very  first  he  began  to  inspire  us 
with  some  of  his  own  enthusiasm.  Coming  in  from 
a  hotly  contested  game  of  wicket,  he  looked  every 
inch  a  man.  He  would  deliberately  close  his  own 
book,  and  lay  it  one  side,  seldom  referring  to  it 
during  the  hour  of  recitation.  It  was  thus  easy  for 
him  to  persuade  us  to  follow  his  example  in  this 
particular.  Our  memories  were  trained  to  do  ad- 
mirable service,  so  that  at  the  end  of  the  year  the 
majority,  if  not  all,  of  the  class  could  repeat  the  en- 
tire seven  books,  except  the  demonstrations  and 
mathematical  calculations,  from  beginning  to  end, 
or  give  any  axiom,  any  definition  or  proposition  by 
its  appropriate  book  and  number." 

In  1860,  after  the  death  of  his  father,  young  Arm- 
[7] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


strong,  in  accordance  with  his  father's  wishes,  came 
to  America,  and  entered  Williams  College.  He  had 
come  out  of  a  missionary  atmosphere  into  a  college 
with  missionary  traditions  and  spirit,  and  under 
the  influence  of  Mark  Hopkins.  He  had  passed  his 
boyhood  among  missionaries  and  natives  of  the 
islands,  and  had  grown  up  with  a  full  knowledge  of 
the  thoughts  and  ways  of  a  childlike  race.  Now  he 
was  to  experience  the  rigorous  atmosphere,  intellec- 
tual, spiritual  and  political,  of  the  ante  bellum  New 
England,  at  a  time  when  tremendous  issues  were  in 
the  heat  of  discussion.  That  from  which  he  had 
come  was,  quite  unknown  to  him,  a  primary  school- 
ing for  his  life  work.  Mark  Hopkins  and  Williams 
College  and  the  New  England  of  that  day  were  to 
give  him  his  preparatory-school  education.  Then 
his  training  was  to  be  rounded  out  by  a  collegiate 
course  in  human  life-and-death  struggle  for  a  cause 
with  which  he  became  identified.  ' '  In  his  Hawaiian 
days,'^  says  one  who  knew  him  well,  ^' he  used  to 
say  that  he  would  be  a  politician  or  a  businessman  ; 
that  he  would  be  a  philanthropist  was  the  farthest 
from  our  thoughts.'' 

And  what  kind  of  fellow  was  Armstrong  among 
the  others  at  Williams?  Dr.  John  Denison  gives 
this  picture  of  him  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  : 

^'He  was  a  trifle  above  middle  height,  broad- 
shouldered,  with  large,  well-poised  head,  forehead 
high  and  wide,  deep-set,  flashing  eyes,  a  long  mane 
of  light-brown  hair,  his  fiice  very  brown  and  sailor- 
like. He  bore  his  head  high,  and  carried  about  an 
air  of  insolent  good  health.  He  was  unconventional 
[8]    , 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

in  his  notioDS,  Sbaksperean  iu  sympathy,  and 
wished  to  see  all  sides  of  life,  yet  he  never  formed 
affiliations  with  the  bad  side.  If  he  touched  pitch, 
he  got  rid  of  it  as  soon  as  he  could,  pleasantly  if 
possible,  but  at  all  events  decidedly  ;  he  had  a 
robust  habit  of  will,  and  laid  hold  always  of  the 
best  in  his  environment.  .  .  .  His  greatest  tend- 
ency seemed  to  be  to  go  ahead.  He  was  the  most 
strenuous  man  I  ever  saw.  Doctor  Arnold  said  of 
himself,  '  Aut  Caesar  aut  uullus.'  Armstrong  said 
of  himself,  'Missionary  or  pirate.'  " 

He  had  serious  thoughts  about  his  future  plans. 
With  all  his  fun  and  high  spirits  he  shows  evi- 
dences of  the  forward  look.  He  wrote  in  March, 
1861: 

"  Just  now  there  is  considerable  religious  interest 
in  college,  and  I  think  I  have  become  a  better 
Christian  than  I  used  to  be.  I  look  forward  with 
joy  to  a  life  of  doing  good,  and  if  my  native  land 
should  present  the  strongest  claims  to  me  I  should 
be  willing  and  glad  to  go  there.  My  aim  is  to  study 
for  the  ministry,  but  yet  I  hesitate  to  take  the 
solemn  vows  ;  the  responsibility  is  so  awful.  Baxter 
[his  brother]  used  to  say  that  none  of  our  family 
would  make  good  ministers ;  if  he  feels  that  way 
about  my  choice,  tell  him  that  I  mean  to  have  good 
times  after  all,  and  not  to  look  like  a  galvanized 
mummy.  Tell  him  to  save  one  of  his  finest  colts  ; 
I  may  need  it  in  about  four  years." 

A  little  later  he  wrote,  as  the  war  excitement 
grew: 

**I  shall  go  to  the  war  if  I  am  needed,  but  not  till 

[9] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


tlien  J  were  I  an  American,  as  I  am  a  Hawaiian,  I 
should  be  off  in  a  hurry.  Next  term  it  will  be 
hard  to  remain  at  Williamstowu,  and  harder  yet  to 
study." 

In  the  spring  of  1862,  when  he  graduated,  his 
thoughts  turned  toward  the  war  more  strongly  than 
ever.  In  the  summer  he  decided  to  recruit  a  com- 
pany. He  built  a  shanty  in  a  public  square  in 
Troy,  and  very  soon  had  his  quota  of  recruits,  and 
was  sworn  in  as  seuior  captaiu.  Thus  began  his 
experience  of  fire  and  blood  and  daring  that  gave 
his  education  its  climax  for  the  work  that  became 
his  when  the  war  was  over. 

His  brother  relates  a  characteristic  incident  of 
the  regiment's  march  through  New  York  City. 
The  men  were  resting  in  City  Hall  Park.  One  of 
Armstrong's  men  came  up  and  said  ;  "  I  say.  Cap- 
tain, where  can  I  get  a  drink  of  water?"  Arm- 
strong started  off  at  once  to  get  it  for  him.  ''It 
seems  to  me,"  said  the  brother,  ''that  is  not  very 
good  military  discipline  for  the  captain  to  be  run- 
ning around  for  water  for  his  men."  "The  men 
must  have  water,"  replied  the  captain  ;  "  I'm  bound 
to  see  that  they  get  it.'^  That  was  his  spirit  then, 
and  it  held  true  to  the  end  of  his  life.  If  any  under 
his  care  needed  anything  he  was  bound  to  see  that 
they  got  it.  Hampton  Institute  was  built  on  that 
foundation. 

Armstrong's  great  testing  under  fire  came  at 
Gettysburg.  After  telling  of  the  terrific  fighting, 
in  which  he  led  his  men,  he  wrote  : 

"  But  I  cannot  describe  the  battle  field — the  dead 
[10] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

— the  wounded — the  piteous  groans  and  the  prayers 
of  agony  that  went  up  to  heaven  all  night  and  day. 
.  .  .  I  may  say  to  you  that  I  have  made  what 
inward  preparation  I  can  for  death.  I  keep  a  little 
volume  of  Psalms  with  me,  and  try  to  act  the  soldier 
of  Christ.  Don't  be  anxious  for  me.  The  God 
above  does  all  things  well.  There  are  more  battles 
to  be  fought,  and  I  must  fight.  My  sensations  in 
battle  are  not  strange.  I  feel  simply  resolved  to  do 
my  best,  to  lead  my  men,  and  to  accept  my  fate 
like  a  man." 

And  now  another  phase  of  Armstrong's  prepara- 
tion came  into  his  life.  In  November,  1862,  he  be- 
came entitled,  after  a  rigid  examination,  to  the  rank 
of  colonel  of  colored  troops,  a  service  that  appealed 
strongly  to  him.  He  took  charge  of  six  companies 
of  the  Ninth  Eegiment  of  United  States  Colored 
Troops  in  General  William  Birney's  command.  On 
the  night  before  he  left  his  old  regiment,  the  One 
Hundred  and  Twenty-Fifth  New  York,  he  wrote  : 

"The  negro  troops  have  not  yet  entirely  iDroved 
themselves  good  soldiers  ;  but  if  the  Negroes  can  be 
made  to  fight  well,  then  is  the  question  of  their  free- 
dom settled.  .  .  .  All  mankind  are  looking  to  see 
whether  the  African  will  show  himself  equal  to  the 
opportunity  before  him.  And  what  is  this  oppor- 
tunity ?  It  is  to  demonstrate  to  the  world  that  he 
is  a  man,  that  he  has  the  highest  elements  of  man- 
hood, courage,  perseverance  and  honor  ;  that  he  is 
not  only  worthy  of  freedom,  but  able  to  win  it,  so 
he  has  a  chance.  ...  I  gladly  lend  myself  to 
the  experiment,  to  this  issue.  It  will  yet  be  a  grand 
[11] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


thing  to  have  been  identified  with  this  negro  move- 
ment." 

Armstrong  drilled  his  men  into  a  state  of  high 
efficiency  in  every  resj)ect.  He  planned,  too,  for 
their  recreation.  He  arranged  his  own  tent  attrac- 
tively, to  quicken  others  to  do  likewise.  At  Bene- 
dict, Maryland,  where  the  troops  were  then  stationed, 
was  a  school  for  the  negro  soldiers,  and  Armstrong 
was  put  in  charge  of  this  school, — "an  old  secesh 
tobacco  barn,  cleaned  out,  ventilated,  and  illumi- 
nated by  a  few  tallow  candles  ;  well-seated  and  holds 
five  hundred  men." 

The  bravery  and  fine  discipline  of  Armstrong's 
men  amply  vindicated  his  hopes  for  them  and  his 
belief  in  them.  When  his  discharge  came,  in 
August,  1865,  various  openings  came  to  him,  and  it 
was  hard  to  choose  among  them.  Out  of  the  un- 
certainty his  duty  began  to  appear.  On  the  third 
anniversary  of  his  enlistment  he  wrote:  "There 
may  be  a  place  for  me  in  the  struggle  for  right  and 
wrong  in  this  country."  And  there  was,  beyond 
any  shadow  of  doubt.  Again  he  wrote  :  "  There  is 
something  in  this  standing  face  to  face  with  destiny, 
looking  into  its  darkness,  that  is  inspiring ;  it  ap- 
peals to  manhood  ;  it  is  thrilling,  like  going  into 
action." 

The  proposed  work  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  un- 
der the  direction  of  General  O.  O.  Howard,  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  ex-slaves,  drew  Armstrong  with  a 
constraining  interest.  He  applied  for  service  in 
that  connection.  He  was  appointed  an  agent  of  the 
Bureau,  having  ten  counties  in  Virginia  in  his  care, 
[12] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

and  he  acted  as  superiutendeut  of  schools  over  a 
larger  territory.  Hampton  was  the  village  near 
Fort  Monroe  where  his  headquarters  were  estab- 
lished. There  were  thousands  of  freed  slaves  all 
around  him  and  his  work  challenged  every  ability 
with  which  he  was  endowed. 

It  was  while  he  was  in  the  midst  of  these  delicate 
and  difficult  tasks  of  untangling  broken  and  twisted 
relationships  of  Negroes  and  whites,  and  while  he 
was  providing  in  practical  ways  for  the  everyday 
needs  of  the  bewildered  and  unschooled  Negroes, 
that  he  became  clear  on  the  solution  of  his  problem. 
He  was  neither  a  Northern  nor  a  Southern  man  by 
birth.  His  citizenship  had  come  to  him  by  resi- 
dence. He  was  not  troubled  by  the  ' '  intense  and 
burning  local  antagonism  to  his  work  which  made 
the  situation  of  his  fellow  workers  almost  intoler- 
able." When  the  work  of  the  Freedmeu's  Bureau 
came  to  an  end  in  1872,  Armstrong  was  already  well 
along  in  his  plans  for  the  uplift  of  the  Negroes. 

The  thing  to  be  done  was  clear.  There  must  be  a 
school  for  the  Freedmeu.  He  wrote  later  of  its 
purpose  : 

' '  To  train  selected  negro  youths  who  should  go 
out  and  teach  and  lead  their  people,  first  by  ex- 
am j)le,  by  getting  land  and  homes ;  to  give  them 
not  a  dollar  that  they  could  not  earn  for  them- 
selves ;  to  teach  respect  for  labor,  to  replace  stupid 
drudgery  with  skilled  hands,  and  to  those  ends  to 
build  up  an  industrial  system  for  the  sake,  not  only 
of  self  support  and  intelligent  labor,  but  also  for  the 
sake  of  character." 

[13] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


General  Armstrong  suggested  to  the  American 
Missionary  Association  that  such  a  school  should  be 
established  at  Hampton,  and  he  was  asked  to  take 
charge  of  it.  ' '  Till  then  my  future  had  been  blind, ' ' 
he  wrote.  "It  had  only  been  clear  that  there  was 
a  work  to  be  done  for  the  ex-slave,  and  where  and 
how  to  do  it." 

From  that  time  on  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 
lived  for  Hampton  Institute.  He  was  the  personal 
friend  of  the  ever-growing  numbers  of  students.  He 
understood  them,  knew  what  they  could  do,  and  saw 
to  it  that  they  did  their  work.  "  There  is  no  place 
for  a  lazy  man  in  this  world  or  the  next,"  he  would 
say.  He  dignified  work,  unfolded  to  the  students 
the  possibilities  of  character  ;  went  about  the  North 
winning  friends  and  gathering  funds  ;  planned  and 
carried  to  completion  great  extension  j)laus,  and  al- 
ways and  everywhere  preaching  his  doctrine  of 
achievement,  "Doing  what  can't  be  done  is  the 
glory  of  living."  At  a  meeting  at  Lake  Mohonk  he 
exclaimed,  "  What  are  Christians  put  into  the  world 
for,  but  to  do  the  impossible  in  the  strength  of 
God  ! ' '  General  J.  F.  B.  Marshall  is  quoted  by 
Armstrong's  biographer  as  having  said  :  "For  most 
people  an  obstacle  is  something  in  the  way  to  stop 
going  on,  but  for  General  Armstrong  it  merely 
meant  something  to  climb  over,  and  if  he  could  not 
climb  all  the  way  over,  he  would  get  up  as  high  as 
possible,  and  then  crow  ! ' ' 

What  a  challenge  there  is  to  the  heroic  in  every 
young  man  in  such  a  life  as  this  !  Who  can  be  near 
such  a  flaming,  forth -faring  spirit  without  taking 
[14] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

fire  from  him  !  General  Armstrong  entered  into  the 
new  life,  May  11,  1893.  Hear  his  call  to  those  who 
were  to  follow  him  in  his  work,  and  his  acknowledg- 
ment of  God's  goodness  to  him  : 

**  Now,  when  all  is  bright,  the  family  together, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  alarm  and  very  much  to  be 
thankful  for,  it  is  well  to  look  ahead  and,  perhaps, 
to  say  the  things  that  I  should  wish  known  should  I 
suddenly  die. 

"I  wish  to  be  buried  in  the  school  graveyard, 
among  the  students,  where  one  of  them  would  have 
been  put  had  he  died  next. 

^'I  wish  no  monument  or  fuss  whatever  over  my 
grave  ;  only  a  simple  headstone — no  text  or  senti- 
ment inscribed,  only  my  name  and  date.  I  wish  the 
simplest  funeral  service,  without  sermon  or  attempt 
at  oratory — a  soldier's  funeral. 

"  I  hope  there  will  be  enough  friends  to  see  that 
the  work  of  the  school  shall  continue.  Unless  some 
make  sacrifice  for  it,  it  cannot  go  on. 

''  A  work  that  requires  no  sacrifice  does  not  count 
for  much  in  fulfilling  God's  plans.  But  what  is 
commonly  called  sacrifice  is  the  best,  happiest 
use  of  oneself  and  one's  resources — the  best  in- 
vestment of  time,  strength  and  means.  He  who 
makes  no  such  sacrifice  is  most  to  be  pitied. 
He  is  a  heathen,  because  he  knows  nothing  of 
God. 

**  In  the  school  the  great  thing  is  not  to  quarrel ; 
to  pull  all  together  ;  to  refrain  from  hasty,  unwise 
words  and  actions  ;  to  unselfishly  and  wisely  seek 
the  best  good  of  all ;  and  to  get  rid  of  workers  whose 

[15] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


temperaments  are  uufortunate — whose  heads  are  uot 
level ;  no  matter  how  much  knowledge  or  culture 
they  may  have.  Cantankerousiiess  is  worse  than 
heterodoxy. 

"  I  wish  uo  effort  at  a  biography  of  myself  made. 
Good  friends  might  get  up  a  pretty  good  story,  but 
it  would  not  be  the  whole  truth.  The  truth  of  life 
usually  lies  deep  down — we  hardly  know  ourselves ; 
God  only  does.  I  trust  his  mercy.  The  shorter 
one^s  creed  the  better.  *  Simply  to  thy  cross  I 
cling  '  is  enough  for  me. 

*'  I  am  most  thankful  for  my  parents,  my  Hawaiian 
home,  for  war  experiences,  and  college  days  at 
Williams,  and  for  life  and  work  at  Hampton, 
Hampton  has  blessed  me  in  so  many  ways ;  along 
with  it  have  come  the  choicest  people  of  this  coun- 
try for  my  friends  and  helpers,  and  then  such  a 
grand  chance  to  do  something  directly  for  those  set 
free  by  the  war  ;  and,  indirectly,  for  those  who  were 
conquered  ;  and  Indian  work  has  been  another  great 
privilege. 

*'  Few  men  have  had  the  chance  that  I  have  had. 
I  never  gave  up  or  sacrificed  anything  in  my  life — 
have  been,  seemingly,  guided  in  everything. 

'*  Prayer  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  It 
keeps  us  near  to  God.  My  own  prayer  has  been  most 
weak,  wavering,  inconstant,  yet  has  been  the  best 
thing  I  have  ever  done.  I  think  this  is  a  universal 
truth— what  comfort  is  there  in  any  but  the  broad- 
est truth  ? 

"I  am  most  curious  to  get  a  glimpse  at  the  next 
world.  How  will  it  seem  ?  Perfectly  fair  and  per- 
[16] 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

fectly  natural,  no  doubt.     We  ought   not   to   fear 
death.     It  is  friendly. 

"  The  ouly  i)ain  that  comes  at  the  thought  of  it  is 
for  my  true,  faithful  wife  and  blessed  dear  children. 
But  they  will  be  brave  about  it  all  and  in  the  end 
stronger.     They  are  my  greatest  comfort. 

'^Hampton  must  not  go  down.  See  to  it,  you 
who  are  true  to  the  black  and  red  children  of  the 
land  and  to  just  ideas  of  education. 

''The  loyalty  of  old  soldiers  and  of  my  students 
has  been  an  unspeakable  comfort. 

*'It  pays  to  follow  one's  best  light — to  put  God 
and  country  first,  ourselves  afterward. 

"  Taps  has  just  sounded. 

S.  C.  Armsteong. 

"  Samjyton,  Virginia^  New  Year's  Eve,  1890.'''' 


[17] 


II 

Sir  George  Williams 

Founder  of  the 
Yoimg  Men^ s  Christiait  Association 


The  biography  of  Sir  George  WilliamSy  written 
by  J.  E.  Hodder  Williams  y  is  a  book  for  every  young 
marl's  library.     It  is  rich  in  interest  and  stimulus. 


II 

SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 

George  Williams  is  known  to  most  men  of  our 
time  as  the  founder  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association.  Just  what  this  achievement  has  meant 
to  the  young  men  of  to-day  is  not  to  be  measured  in 
the  terms  of  ordinary  language.  The  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  in  America  alone  has  had  an 
untold  influence  u]3on  the  life  of  the  generation  in 
which  we  live,  and  the  founder  of  that  association 
was  a  man  whose  business  career  in  the  trade  in 
which  he  was  a  leader  was  quite  as  noted  for  its 
strength  and  conspicuous  success  as  his  career  in  his 
chosen  field  of  Christian  service. 

George  Williams  was  a  country  boy,  born  in 
Dulverton,  Somerset,  October  11,  1821,  and  he  was 
brought  up  among  the  peasants  of  the  English 
countryside.  He  attended  the  ordinary  schools  of 
his  day,  and  was  subjected  to  the  same  temptations 
and  surroundings  as  the  other  boys  of  the  farming 
community.  He  did  not  seem  to  have  any  special 
gift  for  farming.  After  a  period  of  experiment  as 
a  farmer,  when  he  was  one  day  taking  a  load  of  hay 
to  the  barn,  the  wagon  was  upset  by  the  ruts  in  the 
road,  while  the  hay,  the  cart  and  the  horses  went 
into  the  ditch.     This  was  the  final  determining 

[21] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


factor  in  leading  his  brothers  aud  his  father  to  feel 
that  he  would  never  be  a  success  as  a  farmer. 

He  was  accordingly  apprenticed  to  a  draper,  or 
dry-goods  dealer,  in  a  neighboring  town.  Of  his 
character  at  that  time  he  said  :  *^  I  entered  Bridge- 
water  a  careless,  thoughtless,  godless,  swearing 
young  fellow."  Yet  in  later  years  he  could  call 
that  town  his  ''spiritual  homeland."  God's  hand 
was  in  the  move  that  took  him  away  from  the  rough 
farm  life  of  his  day,  aud  placed  him  where  he 
gradually  came  under  strong  religious  influences. 
He  saw  that  there  was  a  life  far  above  the  plane  of 
his  own,  and  he  began  to  be  troubled  about  himself. 
When  he  was  sixteen  he  heard  a  sermon  by  Eev. 
Evan  James  in  the  Congregational  Chapel.  That 
night  he  found  his  way  to  the  back  of  the  shop  in 
which  he  worked,  and  kneeling  there,  he  gave  him- 
self to  God.  When,  in  mature  life,  he  took  part  in 
the  opening  of  a  fine  Association  building  that  he 
had  been  instrumental  in  giving  to  the  town,  he 
said  :  ''It  is  not  easy  to  forget  one's  first  love.  I 
first  learned  in  Bridgewater  to  love  my  dear  Lord 
and  Saviour  for  what  he  had  done  for  me.  I  learned 
at  Bridgewater  to  see  the  vital  importance,  the 
tremendous  importance  of  the  spiritual  life. " 

When  he  was  nineteen  he  went  with  his  father  to 
London,  and  there  was  introduced  to  the  senior 
member  of  the  firm  of  Hitchcock  and  Eogers, 
drapers.  At  first  he  did  not  make  a  particularly 
good  impression  upon  Mr.  Hitchcock,  but  there  was 
somethipg  about  him  which  drew  the  older  man, 
who  finally  concluded  to  try  him.  Young  Will- 
[22] 


SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 


iams  accordiugly  was  taken  into  the  life  of  the 
business  establishment,  which  then  occupied  prac- 
tically the  whole  waking  time  of  the  young  men 
working  there. 

The  business  hours  in  the  forties  were  by  no  means 
so  easy  as  the  hours  of  to-day.  It  was  not  unusual 
for  the  young  men  assistants  to  begin  work  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  finish  at  eleven  at  night 
This  allowed  very  little  time  for  sleep  or  recreation, 
and  in  their  weary  state  of  mind  and  body  their 
recreations  were  likely  to  be  of  a  not  very  high 
order.  The  young  men  lived  in  dormitories,  or 
rooms  connected  with  the  business  establishment,  so 
that  business  was  practically  their  whole  life,  ex- 
cepting for  the  few  hours  of  the  night  when  many  of 
them  resorted  to  dissipation,  while  some  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  time  to  get  necessary  sleep. 

George  Williams,  a  boy  from  the  country,  was 
thrown  into  these  associations  and  had  to  make  his 
way  in  business  in  the  midst  of  what  now  would  be 
called  serious  moral  and  physical  disadvantages. 
The  youug  man  of  to-day  who  looks  forward  to  a 
business  career  faces  no  such  conditions  as  these. 
Drapers'  assistants  in  the  forties  in  the  city  of  Lon- 
don lived  in  a  way  that  would  seem  intolerable  to 
us,  but  George  Williams,  even  in  his  twenties,  was 
able  not  only  to  toil  after  this  fashion,  but  so  to  live 
among  his  fellow  workers  that  instead  of  adding 
another  chapter  to  the  story  of  broken  youth  all 
around  him,  he  began  and  carried  through  to  a 
glorious  world-wide  influence  a  work  that  began  in 
a  very  humble  way.  One  secret  of  his  impervious- 
[23] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


ness  to  the  evils  around  was  what  is  believed  to  be 
his  chief  reason  for  leaving  Bridgewater — a  desire 
to  be  where  he  would  find  the  largest  field  of  work 
for  Christ.  He  set  his  face  steadfastly  toward  the 
life  of  service.  When  he  joined  the  establishment 
there  were  one  hundred  and  forty  assistants.  He 
wrote : 

' '  I  asked  myself,  What  can  I  do  for  these  young 
men  ?  There  were  five  or  six  of  us  in  the  bedroom, 
and  the  conduct  of  my  comj^anions  was  altogether 
different  from  anything  you  can  form  an  idea  of. 
In  an  inner  room  which  opened  out  of  this  bedroom 
there  were  four  or  five  young  men,  one  of  whom  was 
a  Christian,  and  one  was  a  good  moral  character, 
although  unconverted.'^ 

These  two  Christian  young  men  arranged  to  meet 
in  the  bedroom  for  prayer,  and  George  Williams 
says  of  these  beginnings,  *' We  met,  our  numbers 
grew  and  the  room  was  soon  cramped  ;  in  answer  to 
prayer  the  spirit  of  God  was  present,  and  we  had 
conversion  after  conversion.'^ 

Williams  made  it  his  habit  to  pick  out  his  men 
one  by  one  and  pray  for  them  steadily.  As  the  re- 
sult of  this,  many  of  the  young  fellows  were  con- 
verted ;  and  Mr.  Hitchcock  himself  was  undoubtedly 
led  out  into  a  public  profession  of  Christ  in  this 
way,  and  became  a  helper  to  the  young  men  who 
were  trying  to  lead  a  Christian  life. 

One  young  fellow  who  was  very  hard  to  reach 
was  under  consideration  in  one  of  the  prayer  meet- 
ings. When  Williams  found  out  that  he  was 
specially  fond  of  oysters,  he  suggested  that  the  boys 
[24] 


SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 


give  au  oyster  sapper,  aud  invite  liiin  to  it,  at  the 
same  time  making  it  plain  that  there  was  to  be  no 
talking  to  the  young  man  about  his  soul  on  that  oc- 
casion. The  man  was  much  amused  at  the  invita- 
tion ;  he  could  not  think  of  these  Christian  young 
men  as  indulging  in  any  such  good  time.  But  he 
discovered  that  the  Christians  were  not  quite  so 
dull  as  he  thought  they  were.  Later  he  began  to 
attend  the  prayer  meeting,  and  joined  their  prayer 
circle,  and  he  was  among  the  first  twelve  members 
of  the  Association  that  was  later  formed. 

In  his  own  bedroom  Williams  gathered  together  a 
few  of  his  friends  for  the  study  of  a  plan  that  had 
taken  shape  in  his  mind.  Out  of  that  meeting  grew 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  first  de- 
signed as  a  means  of  evangelistic  and  missionary 
work  among  the  assistants  of  Hitchcock  and  Eogers  ; 
and  gradually  extending  from  that  establishment  to 
others.  Into  this  work,  George  Williams  put  his 
first  and  best  thought,  kept  it  in  the  center  of  his 
prayer  life  and  gave  to  it  his  skill,  his  untiring  en- 
ergy and  his  best  powers  in  the  inspiring  and  lead- 
ing of  men  in  all  walks  of  life. 

Meanwhile,  he  did  not  abate  his  intense  and  clear- 
headed attention  to  his  business  as  a  growing  young 
man  in  a  dry -goods  house.  He  attended  as  relig- 
iously to  his  business  duties,  as  he  attended  busily 
to  his  religious  duties.  When  he  was  put  in  charge 
of  the  buyers,  he  showed  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  needs  of  the  public  ;  he  knew  how  to  encourage 
his  buyers,  and  to  sui)ervise  them  closely,  and  un- 
der his  care  the  business  increased  greatly,  long  be- 

[25] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


fore  the  glad  day  came  when  he  was  taken  into  the 
firm.  Another  partnership,  his  marriage  with  a 
daughter  of  Mr.  Hitchcock,  was  a  profound  and 
continued  influence  for  nntold  good  in  his  life. 

He  was  sunshine  itself  among  his  associates.  He 
was  able  to  accomplish  enormous  amounts  of  work 
by  his  steady  and  cheery  industry,  and  his  shrewd 
insight  into  the  character  and  latent  ability  of 
others  added  much  to  the  sum  total  of  his  success 
by  the  wise  choice  of  helpers.  His  religion  and  his 
business  were  blended  in  a  combination  that  held 
valid  and  effective  under  the  tests  of  a  long  life, 
"  He  believed  and  stated  more  than  once,"  says  his 
biographer,  "that  the  lack  of  a  well-grounded  faith 
in  Christ,  of  definite  Christian  ideals,  was  one  of 
the  chief  causes  of  commercial  failure ;  believed 
with  his  father-in-law,  the  founder  of  the  firm,  that 
one  of  the  greatest  delusions  of  the  day  was  that  relig- 
ion spoiled  a  man  for  business  ;  that  the  men  of  God 
(other  things,  natural  ability,  education  and  knowl- 
edge being  equal)  are  the  best  men  of  business.  He 
was  not,  however,  inclined  to  make  the  mistake  of 
trusting  or  employing  a  man  merely  on  account  of 
religious  training  or  convictions.  He  held  firmly 
to  the  idea  that  a  Christian  young  man  might  be, 
and  indeed  ought  to  be,  a  good  employee,  and 
although  he  did  all  in  his  power  to  impress  upon 
everyone  in  his  establishment  the  claims  of  Christ, 
he  had,  in  these  days  of  the  making  of  his  fortune, 
the  keenest  scent  of  the  hypocrite  and  the  highest 
appreciation  of  commercial  capacity." 

In   his   home  life,    he   was  exceedingly   haj^py, 

[26] 


SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 


although  his  engagements  prevented  him  from 
spending  many  of  his  evenings  with  his  family.  It 
was  his  custom  on  Saturday  night  to  read  to  his 
family  from  the  Illustrated  Weekly,  and  then  upon 
Sunday  morning  to  go  with  them  to  Portsmouth 
Chapel  where  he  attended  church.  On  the  Sabbath 
he  was  busy  with  Christian  work  of  all  sorts  :  hos- 
pital visiting,  distribution  of  tracts,  speaking  at 
meetings,  personal  work  and  care  for  one  branch  or 
another  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
enterprise.  On  many  a  business  day,  after  the 
crowded  hours  in  his  office,  he  would  spend  his 
evenings  at  the  Association  building.  Sometimes 
several  months  would  pass  without  any  evenings 
spent  at  home. 

He  was  accustomed  to  invite  persons  to  lunch 
with  him  in  his  establishment,  and  there  he  would 
entertain  friends  from  the  country,  persons  from 
abroad,  visitors  who  were  interested  in  the  work  he 
was  doing,  and  secretaries  of  Associations.  A  mis- 
sionary from  western  China  wrote  how  the  words  of 
good  cheer  spoken  in  that  little  room  remained  with 
him  throughout  the  years  of  toil  and  persecution. 
Another,  a  country  clergyman,  told  of  the  way  in 
which  his  heart  was  made  to  glow  as  they  talked 
together  of  the  goodness  of  God  and  of  the  greatness 
of  the  work  ;  a  stranger  from  America  told  how  he 
had  carried  across  the  Atlantic  the  blessings  he  had 
received  at  parting. 

After  his  luncheon  time,  it  was  Williams'  custom 
to  spend  fifteen  minutes  in  prayer,  and  to  ask  for 
special  mercies  ujion  the  work  represented  by  those 
[27] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


who  were  at  the  luucheou  with  him.  His  biographer 
says : 

"It  is  impossible  to  give  more  thau  ODe  or  two 
examples  of  the  way  in  which  George  Williams'  iu- 
fluence  j)ermeated  the  religious  activities  of  his  time. 
He  was  conuected  more  or  less  intimately  with 
nearly  eveiy  prominent  evangelistic  institution  in 
the  country,  and  was  the  main  support  of  many 
humbler  endeavors.  His  contributions  to  the  Brit- 
ish and  Foreign  Bible  Societies  were  very  large.  He 
gave  lavishly  to  missionary  societies  of  all  denomi- 
nations. His  generosity  recognized  no  limitations 
of  creed.  He  took  part  in  the  reopening  of  White- 
field's  Tabernacle  and  gave  a  large  sum  toward  the 
erection  of  an  Anglican  Church  at  Exeter  in  which 
his  son,  Eev.  Charles  Williams,  was  particularly  in- 
terested. 

''But  perhaps  more  characteristic  examples  of  his 
breadth  of  mind  and  wide  generosity  are  to  be  found 
in  the  records  of  less  known  societies,  such  as  the 
Commercial  Travelers'  Christian  Association,  the 
object  of  which  is  primarily  the  promotion  of  inter- 
course among  Christian  commercial  men  with  a  view 
to  counteracting  the  special  temptations  of  the 
'road'  ;  the  Christian  Community  of  those  who 
work  voluntarily  among  the  poorest  of  London's 
poor,  especially  in  the  workhouses ;  the  Seaman's 
Christian  Friend  Society,  which  ministers  to  the 
welfare  of  sick  and  destitute  seamen  and  carries  on 
missions  in  some  forty  British  ports ;  the  Soldiers' 
Christian  Association,  with  its  four  hundred  branches 
scattered  throughout  the  Empire  ;  the  London  Cab- 
[28] 


SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 


men's  Mission  ;  the  London  Tramcar  and  Omnibus 
Scripture  Text  Mission,  whose  object  is  to  arrange 
for  the  exhibition  of  texts  in  trams,  omnibuses  and 
railway  carriages  ;  and  even  of  such  a  society  as  the 
Christian  Cyclists'  Union.  These  are  but  a  few  out 
of  many  similar  institutions  which  had  ever  a  warm 
place  in  his  heart,  and  which  now  mourn  the  loss  of 
one  who  never  wearied  in  forwarding  the  work  by 
his  counsel  and  never  failed  them  in  their  hours  of 
need."  And  further  it  is  said  ;  ^' Whatever  the  de. 
mands  upon  his  time  and  purse,  he  did  not  forget  or 
neglect  the  least  ostentatious  work  with  which  he 
had  ever  been  connected.  One  of  his  most  intimate 
friends  conducted  a  mission  at  Bromley,  in  Kent, 
and  for  twenty  years  without  a  break,  George  Will- 
iams occupied  the  chair  at  its  annual  meeting, 
postponing  important  engagements  to  be  present, 
and  to  the  last  was  as  keenly  interested  in  its 
welfare  as  if  its  work  had  been  of  world-wide  di- 
mension." 

Not  long  before  the  great  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  Jubilee  gathering  in  London,  the  Queen 
offered  to  George  Williams  the  honor  of  knighthood 
in  acknowledgment  of  his  '' distinguished  service  to 
the  cause  of  humanity."  When  he  received  the  let- 
ter he  grew  pale,  and  in  a  choking  voice  asked  his 
secretary,  handing  him  the  letter:  ''What  do  you 
think  of  that  ?  "  "Sir,  it  is  a  well-deserved  honor,'' 
was  the  earnest  reply.  "No,  no,"  said  George 
Williams,  "it  is  not  for  me,  it  is  for  the  Associa- 
tion. It  belongs  to  our  Master,  let  us  put  it  at  his 
feet."  Then,  kneeling  in  prayer,  this  knight  of 
[  29  ] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


Christian  service  unaffectedly  rendered  homage  to 
the  Lord  whom  he  had  served  so  long. 

"From  first  to  last,"  writes  his  biographer,  "  the 
Jubilee  was  a  triumph.  But  the  memory  which 
will  last  the  longest  of  all  is  the  frail  figure  of  an  old 
gentleman  as  he  stood  to  receive  from  ten  thousand 
of  his  fellow  men  a  demonstration  of  affection  and 
pride  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  religion,  and 
wondered  why  everybody  was  so  kind  to  him." 

George  Williams  passed  away  in  November  of 
1905.  Long  years  before,  when  he  was  thirty-four 
years  old,  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  set  down  for 
his  own  guidance  certain  rules,  which  are  well  worth 
quoting.  These  rules  explain  much  that  came  into 
his  life,  as  he  went  on  with  his  remarkable  service 
in  the  field  of  business,  and  in  the  field  of  Christian 
philanthropy.    This  prayer  was  written  as  a  preface  : 

* '  The  Lord  be  pleased  to  help  me  to  form  resolu- 
tions and  then  give  me  grace  to  keep  them.'^ 

The  rules  were  : 

"That  I  determine  to  get  an  alarm  and  when  it 
goes  off  I  am  out  of  bed  before  it  is  finished. 

"That  I  read  and  meditate  upon  a  portion  of 
God's  Word  every  morning  and  spend  some  time  in 
prayer. 

"That  I  strive  to  live  more  in  the  spirit  of  prayer. 

"That  I  do  not  parley,  but  resist  at  once  the  va- 
rious temptations  which  beset  me. 

"  That  I  resist  the  Devil  at  once,  however  he  may 
come  to  me. 

"That  I  pray  more  for  my  dear  relatives  and 
strive  for  their  conversion. 
[30] 


SIR  GEORGE  WILLIAMS 


"That  I  speud some  tiaie iu  praying  for  the  young 
men  at  St.  Paul's. 

"  That  I  have  certain  days  and  times  for  certain 
things,  and  strive  to  be  regular  and  punctual. 

"  That  I  strive  to  gain  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  have  Bible  readings  with  dear  Helen. 

' '  That  I  read  these  resolutions  over  before  every 
ordinance  day." 

And  this  was  the  message  that  he  sent  to  the 
young  men  of  America  when  he  had  almost  reached 
the  end  of  his  earth's  journey  : 

"  Tell  the  men  of  America  to  seek  first  the  king- 
dom of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  not  to  think 
too  much  of  the  things  that  are  temporal,  for  the 
true  riches  are  only  to  be  found  in  Jesus  Christ." 

Then  he  said  to  his  visitors  to  whom  these  words 
were  spoken  : 

' '  My  brothers,  we  shall  never  meet  on  earth 
again.  I  am  just  waiting,  waiting  for  His  call.'^ 
Then  raising  both  his  hands,  as  in  benediction,  he 
said,  "May  God  be  with  you  and  make  you  and  all 
your  faithful  workers  very  useful  in  his  hands,  to 
the  salvation  of  precious  souls." 


[31] 


Ill 

George  H.  Stuart 

A  Christian  Leader  in 
The  Heroic  Age  of  America  " 


Mr.  Stuart's  own  account  of  his  life,  edited 
by  Robert  Ellis  Thompson,  D.  D.,  is  filled  with 
stirring  reminiscences  of  men  and  events, — "  2^he 
Life  of  George  H.  Stuart.'' 


Ill 

GEORGE  H.  STUART 

On  a  July  day  in  1863  a  man  mouuted  a  chair  in 
the  center  of  the  big  dining  room  of  Congress  Hall 
in  Saratoga  Springs,  New  York,  and  held  up  a 
telegram.  Then  he  asked  in  a  loud  voice  if  the 
peox)le  in  that  room  wanted  to  hear  from  Charleston. 
There  was  no  question  about  that.  The  Federal 
navy  was  besieging  Charleston,  and  important  news 
was  expected. 

There  was  a  sudden  hush  throughout  the  room. 
Then  the  man  read  the  telegram,  which  was  from  a 
naval  officer : 

*'For  God's  sake  send  us  a  cargo  of  ice,  as  our 
men  are  dying  for  want  of  cooling  drinks." 

The  man  on  the  chair  then  announced  that  all 
who  wished  to  help  might  leave  their  contribution 
at  the  hotel  office.  Dessert  was  about  to  be  served, 
but  without  waiting  for  it  the  diners  hurried  to  the 
office,  and  the  giving  began. 

Then  the  man  who  had  caused  all  this  stir  went 
to  the  Union  Hotel,  and  to  the  United  States  Hotel, 
where  the  appeal  was  made  again.  So  much  was 
given  in  response  to  these  appeals  that  a  vessel  was 
chartered  in  Boston  by  telegram,  and  within  a  day 
or  two  sailed  for  Charleston,  loaded  with  ice. 

The  man  who  had  been  so  quick  to  seize  the  op- 
portunity of  the  hour  was  the  chairman  of  the 
[35] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


CbristiaD  CommissioD,  George  H.  Stuart  of  Phila- 
delphia. He  was  always  on  the  alert  to  serve,  aud 
always  bold  and  resourceful  in  doing  what  needed  to 
be  done. 

Mr.  Stuart  was  for  many  busy  years  a  familiar 
figure  not  only  in  Philadelphia,  but  in  many  other 
centers  at  home  and  abroad,  wherever  his  activities 
for  mankind  led  him.  He  came  into  great  promi- 
nence in  America  during  the  Civil  War,  because  of 
his  place  and  work  as  Chairman  of  the  Christian 
Commission,  a  work  inaugurated  by  a  convention 
over  which  he  presided,  of  American  Young  Meu's 
Christian  Associations,  held  in  New  York,  in 
November,  1861,  ''to  take  active  measures  to  pro- 
mote the  spiritual  aud  temporal  welfare  of  the 
soldiers  in  the  army  and  the  sailors  and  marines  in 
the  navy,  in  cooperation  with  the  chaplains  and 
others. ' '  His  capacity  for  devotion  to  a  cause,  his 
executive  ability,  his  power  with  men  and  his  excep- 
tional platform  skill  were  given  scope  in  this  great 
task. 

George  H.  Stuart  came  to  America  when  he  was 
fifteen  years  old,  from  Ulster,  the  source  of  so  much 
of  our  sturdy  Scotch -Irish  immigration.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  that  stock  on  this 
side  of  the  sea.  He  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1831, 
while  Stephen  Girard  was  yet  alive,  while  all  the 
city  lay  to  the  east  of  Broad  Street  along  the  Dela- 
ware, and  while  the  present  Philadelphia  area  was 
still  under  the  control  of  several  city  governments. 
He  lived  to  see  the  city  uuified  and  tremendously 
extended  j  to  see  the  beginnings  and  some  of  the 

[36] 


GEORGE  H.   STUART 


progress  of  busiuess  undertakings  there  that  have 
become  prominent  in  the  world  of  commerce,  and  to 
be  chosen  one  of  the  managers  of  the  vast  sums  left 
by  Stephen  Girard  to  be  administered  by  the  City 
of  Philadelphia. 

Young  Stuart  served  a  clerical  and  traveling  ap- 
prenticeship in  his  brother's  dry -goods  house.  After 
six  years  he  was  taken  into  partnership  in  the  firm 
of  Stuart  and  Brothers  on  New  Year's  Day,  1837. 

As  to  his  boyhood  schooling  Mr.  Stuart  said, 
toward  the  end  of  his  life  : 

*'I  was  full  of  fun  and  frolic,  and  probably  no 
boy  ever  paid  less  attention  to  his  studies.  Owing 
to  my  predisposition  for  sport,  my  fondness  for  hunt- 
ing and  swimming,  et  cetera,  my  education  was  not 
what  it  might  otherwise  have  been.  I  have  often 
since  regretted  that  I  had  not  paid  more  attention  to 
it.  What  I  have  picked  up  has  been  through  coming 
into  contact  with  men  of  culture  and  education." 

He  had  **  picked  up"  already  some  clear  and 
definite  moral  and  religious  standards  of  conduct 
that  helped  to  prepare  him  for  growth  in  this 
respect.  His  home  training  in  the  Associate 
Presbyterian  Church  in  Ulster  had  been  strict  in 
many  details.  As  life  opened  out  before  him  in  his 
new  homeland  he  acquired  convictions  of  duty  that 
did  much  to  shape  his  career.  He  told  once  the 
story  of  a  business  trip  to  Pittsburgh  by  canal,  while 
he  was  still  a  salesman.  He  and  the  two  friends 
with  him  found  to  their  surprise  that  the  boat  could 
not  reach  Pittsburgh  until  Sunday  night.  "  With 
my  early  education  I  could  not  consent  to  travel  on 
[37] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


the  Sabbath,"  he  said,  "and,  with  a  few  others 
who  felt  as  I  did,  I  left  the  boat  about  teu  o'clock  at 
night  at  a  small  towD."  Wheu  they  did  reach 
Pittsburgh  they  stopj)ed  at  a  hotel  where,  as  was 
the  universal  custom,  they  had  their  wine  at  dinner. 
That  evening  they  went  to  a  temperance  lecture. 
One  of  the  speakers  held  up  a  glass  of  wine,  de- 
scribed its  contents,  and  the  results  of  its  use. 
"  It  was  then  and  there,"  says  Mr.  Stuart,  "  in  my 
seat,  at  the  conclusion  of  this  address,  that  I  deter- 
mined, without  joining  any  temperance  society,  to 
abstain  thereafter  from  the  use  of  wine  as  a 
beverage,  which,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  have  been 
able  to  do  to  this  day." 

This  led  him  to  take  a  keen  interest  in  the 
tem23erance  movement.  Eight  years  later  it  was  he 
who  welcomed  John  B.  Gough  to  Philadelphia  on 
his  first  visit  there  as  a  temperance  speaker,  having 
been  engaged  by  Mr.  Stuart  to  speak  in  the  young 
merchant's  church. 

The  foundation  of  Mr.  Stuart's  business  prosper- 
ity was  laid  by  his  far-sighted  courage  during  his 
first  trip  to  England,  in  1840.  He  was  buying  goods 
for  his  firm.  He  for  the  first  time  learned  of  and 
saw  black  alpacas.  He  bought  thirty  cases,  and 
sent  twenty  cases  to  Philadelphia  and  ten  cases  to 
New  York.  Promjjtly  a  protest  came  from  the  New 
York  branch,  but  the  goods  sold  rapidly,  and  the 
firm  became  large  importers.  Some  concerns,  whose 
members  were  known  to  have  anti-slavery  ideas, 
were  boycotted  by  those  of  other  sympathies,  but 
Stuart  and  Brothers,  whose  anti-slavery  views  were 

[38] 


GEORGE  H.  STUART 


wc41  known,  were  not  boycotted,  because  alj)aca  was 
one  of  the  fabrics  that  the  ladies  of  both  North  and 
South  decided  they  must  have. 

Both  business  skill  and  great  ability  in  Christian 
service  were  found  in  Mr.  Stuart  to  a  high  degree. 
The  editor  of  his  autobiography^.  President  Kobert 
Ellis  Thompson,  writes  :. 

''The  successful  business  man  is  one  who  has 
taken  the  trouble  to  ascertain  the  relative  value  of 
things,  and  who  proceeds  to  a;Ct  on  that  knowledge 
without  question  or  hesitation.  And  the  Christian 
of  this  temper  is  a  man  who  has  satisfied  himself 
that  his  Master's  estimate  of  the  value  of  things  is 
the  right  one,  and  who  proceeds  to  act  on  that  as- 
sumption with  as  little  reserve  or  hesitation  as  if  it 
were  a  question  of  the  market  price  of  hard  ware  or 
dry -goods. 

"It  has  been  Mr.  Stuart's  joy  to  testify  everywhere 
and  to  all  men  of  his  love  for  the  Saviour,  and  that 
with  a  frankness  and  unreserve  which  mark  the  man 
who  'means  business  '  in  his  religion  as  elsewhere." 

Young  Stuart  joined  the  Eeformed  Presbyterian 
Church  in  Ai^ril,  1835,  and  from  that  time  on  he 
served  in  nearly  every  office  within  the  gift  of  his 
church.  He  was  devoted  to  Sunday-school  work, 
and  acted  as  secretary,  treasurer,  teacher,  and  as 
superintendent.  His  first  appointment  was  as  a 
Sunday-school  librarian,  and  from  that  he  went  on 
with  ever  increasing  interest  in  the  Bible  study  and 
character-training  institution  of  the  church.  As  a 
superintendent  he  was  particularly  careful  in  his 
choice  of  teachers,  and  his  consciousness  of  oppor- 
[39] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


tuuity  is  shown  in  part  by  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
means  of  leading  many  young  men  into  the  ministry. 

He  found  most  of  his  own  leadings  into  large  serv- 
ice in  some  small  service  close  at  hand.  He  was  spir- 
itually alert,  and  although  he  was  a  master  of  organi- 
zation as  a  method,  he  did  not  wait  for  organization 
to  accomj)lish  a  work  that  might  seem  to  him  needed. 

His  interest  in  foreign  missions  began  when  he 
was  yet  in  his  teens.  A  young  Irish  coachman,  who 
had  refused  to  get  the  carriage  of  his  employer 
ready  for  a  Sunday  drive,  and  who  was  promptly 
taken  into  the  man's  counting  room,  was  a  member 
of  Stuart's  Sunday  school.  He  became  the  head 
bookkeeper  of  the  firm,  and  in  his  spare  moments 
was  studying  Greek,  prej)aratory  to  entering  the 
ministry,  which  he  finally  succeeded  in  doing.  He 
went  out  to  the  foreign  field  as  the  first  representa- 
tive of  the  Eeformed  Presbyterian  Church  of  the 
United  States,  in  India.  There  he  founded  an 
orphan  school,  and  it  was  characteristic  of  the  con- 
nectedness of  Mr.  Stuart's  life  interests  that  for  his 
Sunday-school  friend  he  raised  money  to  support 
and  educate  many  of  the  boys,  one  of  whom  was 
named  for  him  and  became  a  preacher.  And  from 
that  home  Sunday  school,  largely  through  the  influ- 
ence of  that  coachman-missionary,  ten  missionaries 
went  out  to  help  him  in  India,  two  to  Africa,  and 
one  to  China.  Mr.  Stuart  himself  was  the  treasurer 
of  the  missionary  board  of  his  church  from  1843  to 
1865,  and  was  the  publisher  of  its  missionary  maga- 
zine, The  Banner  of  the  Covenant,  until  1859. 

Mr.  Stuart's  interest  in  the  anti-slavery  movement 
[40] 


GEORGE  H.  STUART 


also  began  at  home.  He  was  much  impressed  by  a 
natioual  anti-slavery  convention  in  Philadelphia  in 
December,  1833.  When  still  a  young  man  he  met 
Benjamin  Luudy,  tlie  abolitionist,  and  John  Green- 
leaf  Whittier,  and  although  his  business  friends  as- 
sured him  he  would  hurt  his  business,  his  interest 
in  the  movement  grew  in  intensity  and  activity. 
He,  with  other  young  men,  organized  a  Young 
Men's  Anti-Slavery  Society,  especially  to  enlist  the 
sympathies  of  the  evangelical  churches  in  behalf  of 
the  slaves.  The  hall  erected  for  meetings  by  the 
Abolition  party  and  by  this  young  men's  society 
was  burned  by  a  mob.  About  that  time,  the 
Negroes  in  the  city  were  threatened  by  a  mob,  a 
movement  that  was  frustrated  by  volunteer  militia 
of  which  Stuart  was  a  member. 

In  the  presidential  election  of  1840  he  was  the 
only  one  at  his  polling  place  who  voted  the  Free 
Soil  ticket,  although  he  was  warned  that  if  he  did 
so  his  life  would  be  in  danger. 

The  great  revival  of  1857  was  a  time  of  quickening 
and  development  for  him,  and  after  that  his  public 
gifts  seemed  to  unfold  to  a  remarkable  degree.  It 
was  his  whole  personality  that  counted,  not  merely 
what  he  said.  The  spirit  within  him  shone  through 
his  cheery  countenance,  his  hearty  ways,  his  alert 
action,  his  wonderful  tact,  his  ability  to  get  close  to 
the  heart  of  men  of  all  sorts  and  stations.  As  eai-ly 
as  1854  he  came  into  x>rominence  as  a  presiding 
officer  in  public  meetings,  when  he  presided  at  an 
eight-nights'  debate  on  the  authority  and  inspiration 
of  the  Scripture,  between  Dr.  Joseph  F.  Berg,  and 
[4lj 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


the  Euglish  infidel,  Joseph  Barker,  before  an  au- 
dience of  more  than  two  thousand.  Nineteen  years 
later  he  was  on  the  platform  with  Mr.  Barker,  at  the 
dedication  of  the  hall  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association  in  Germantown. 

He  was  the  first  president  of  the  Philadelphia 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  organized  June 
15,  1854,  of  which  John  Wauamaker,  who  was  then 
a  clerk  in  a  clothing  store,  was  the  first  paid  secre- 
tary, with  his  salary  guaranteed  by  Mr.  Stuart. 

Abroad  as  well  as  in  America  this  keen-minded, 
consecrated,  genial  man  was  called  into  distin- 
guished service.  During  the  great  revival  in  Ire- 
land in  1860,  he  made  a  six  weeks' journey  through 
the  island,  and  during  that  time  he  made  seventy- 
four  addresses,  to  over  seventy-five  thousand  people. 
On  one  occasion,  in  Belfast,  he  spoke,  at  an  out- 
door meeting  in  the  Botanic  Gardens,  to  more  than 
forty  thousand  persons. 

He  was  the  chairman  of  the  International  Com- 
mittee of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
and  presided  over  the  convention  called  by  that 
body  during  which  the  Christian  Commission  was 
founded.  Of  this  he  was  also  chosen  chairman,  as 
already  narrated.  And  that  responsibility  was  his 
through  the  harrowing  days  of  the  sixties,  not 
merely  as  a  presiding  genius,  bat  as  a  worker  in 
season  and  out  of  season.  There  was  no  i)recedent 
to  guide  in  the  work.  "We  were  hampered  at 
first,"  he  wrote,  "by  the  prevalent  feeling  that 
sufficient  agencies  already  existed  for  doing  such  a 
work  as  we  contemplated  ;  but  this  rapidly  gave 
[42] 


GEORGE  H.  STUART 


way  to  the  conviction  that  there  was  room  for  our 
organization  as  well  as  for  the  national  and  state 
organizations  already  in  the  field  ;  and,  toward  the 
close  of  the  war  there  was  no  organization  which 
had  a  stronger  hold  than  ours." 

The  work  had  the  hearty  Indorsement  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  of  his  officials,  and  of  the  generals  of 
the  armies,  ''and  particularly,"  says  Mr.  Stuart, 
' '  that  of  General  Grant,  who  on  all  occasions  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  aid  us  in  ministering  to 
the  temjDoral  and  spiritual  wants  of  our  soldiers, 
sometimes  stretching  his  authority  in  our  favor." 

And  what  gifts  came  in  for  this  work  !  A  poor 
sewing  woman,  an  American  living  in  England, 
sent  a  five-pound  note  to  President  Lincoln  for 
Bibles  for  the  wounded  soldiers  of  the  North.  He 
asked  John  Hay,  then  one  of  his  private  secretaries, 
to  send  the  note  to  Mr.  Stuart,  who  bought  the 
uote,  but  not  until  he  had  "sold  it  over  and  over 
again,  realizing  from  its  repeated  sale  about  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars." 

A  friend  in  Pittsburgh  telegraphed  Mr.  Stuart  to 
come  there  and  bring  a  good  speaker  with  him, 
and  promised  an  offering  of  five  thousand  dollars. 
"!N'o,"  answered  Stuart,  "I  can't  travel  seven 
hundred  miles  for  five  thousand  dollars,  a  sum 
which  I  could  get  in  five  minutes  in  Philadelphia  ; 
but  I  will  go  for  twenty  thousand."  Back  came 
the  answer  over  the  wire,  "Come."  On  the  night 
of  the  meeting,  when  Mr.  Stuart  spoke  for  two 
hours  or  more,  and  on  the  next  morning,  more  than 
forty-four  thousand  dollars  were  raised. 

[43] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


Ou  one  occasion  Mr.  Stuart  with  three  friends, 
oue  of  whom  was  William  E.  Dodge,  visited  Camp 
Convalesce  Lit,  about  ten  miles  from  Washington. 
A  meeting  held  there  lasted  until  ten  o'clock  at 
night.  The  party  was  obliged  to  leave  for  Wash- 
ington, but  the  Colonel  at  first  would  not  give  them 
the  necessary  countersign  for  passing  the  sentinels 
on  the  way.  However,  he  finally  took  Mr.  Stuart 
aside,  and  told  him  that  the  magic  word  was 
Beverley.  When  about  two  miles  from  camp,  the 
carriage  was  stopped  by  a  sentinel.  Mr.  Stuart, 
stepping  to  the  ground,  advanced  toward  the  senti- 
nel, who  with  his  gun  pointed  at  the  traveler,  or- 
dered him  to  halt,  and  give  the  countersign.  He 
gave  it,  "Beverley." 

"Mr.  Stuart,^'  said  the  sentinel,  "you  have  got 
the  wrong  countersign." 

"  What  is  the  right  one  ?  "  he  asked. 

"I  dare  not  give  it  to  you,  under  penalty  of 
death,  and,  had  I  not  known  your  voice,  I  should 
have  shot  you  on  the  spot." 

The  party  returned  to  camp,  and  found  the  gen- 
eral in  command,  who  gave  them  the  right  word, 
"Massachusetts."  When  Mr.  Stuart  once  more 
came  to  the  sentinel  who  had  halted  him,  he  in- 
quired how  the  soldier  had  known  his  voice.  The 
man  explained  that  some  years  before  he  had  heard 
him  address  a  Sunday  school  in  New  York.  Mr. 
Stuart  then  put  his  hand  on  the  sentinel's  shoulder 
and  asked  him  if  he  had  the  countersign.  * '  Thank 
God,  I  have  ! ''  was  the  answer. 

"  What  is  it  r '  asked  Stuart. 
[44  j 


GEORGE  H.  STUART 


*' The  blood  of  Jesus." 

As  they  shook  hands  and  bade  each  other  good 
night,  Mr.  Stuart  said,  *'With  this  countersign 
there  will  be  no  danger  of  your  being  halted  at  the 
gates  of  heaven." 

Just  before  the  fourth  and  last  annual  meeting  of 
the  Commission,  in  the  House  of  Eepresentatives, 
the  friends  of  the  Commission  called  on  President 
Johnson,  Secretaries  Stanton  and  Seward,  and  the 
other  members  of  the  Cabinet.  During  each  call 
the  visitors  held  a  brief  prayer  meeting.  It  had 
been  suggested  to  Mr.  Stuart  that  this  plan  might 
not  be  agreeable  to  President  Johnson.  But  Stuart 
thought  this  made  prayer  in  this  case  ''  all  the  more 
needful,"  and  he  called  upon  a  bishop  to  offer 
prayer  in  Johnson's  presence.  There  was  no  objec- 
tion at  all.  "And  having  made  this  good  begin- 
ning, we  went  on  as  we  began,"  says  Mr.  Stuart 
with  evident  gratitude  for  this  exi)erience. 

The  Commission  during  the  war  distributed  in 
money  and  goods  $6,291,107,  and  directed  the  work 
of  4,859  agents,  most  of  them  unpaid,  and  nearly 
two  hundred  Christian  women,  serving  at  the  front 
in  hospitals.  And  it  distributed  1,466,748  Bibles 
or  Scripture  portions,  8,603,434  books  or  pam- 
phlets, 18,189,863  newspapers  and  magazines,  and 
30,368,998  pages  of  tracts.  The  chairman  might 
well  count  this  service  as  the  most  far-reaching  of 
his  life. 

Mr.  Stuart  became  one  of  General  Grant's  closest 
friends.  On  one  of  his  visits  to  the  army  he  called 
at  General  Grant's  headquarters.  When  he  was 
[45] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


about  to  leave,  he  asked  the  General  if  there  was 
anything  he  could  do  for  him  in  Philadelphia. 
Grant  asked  him  if  he  could  find  a  furnished  house 
there  for  the  Grant  family.  On  the  way  to  Philadel- 
phia Mr.  Stuart  suggested  to  Stephen  A.  Colwell, 
who  was  with  him,  that  money  might  be  raised  to 
buy  Grant  a  house.  Mr.  Stuart  called  a  meeting  in 
his  counting  room,  and  no  difficulty  was  found  in 
raising  more  than  forty  thousand  dollars  for  the 
house  and  lot,  and  enough  to  furnish  the  house  com- 
fortably. At  the  close  of  the  war  Grant  presented 
Mr.  Stuart  with  the  log  cabin  in  which  he  had  spent 
the  last  months  of  the  war.  And  by  invitation  of 
the  City  Council  Mr.  Stuart  placed  the  cabin  in 
Fairmount  Park.  Grant  appointed  him  a  member 
of  the  Board  of  Indian  Commissioners  upon  which 
Stuart  rendered  great  service  in  helping  to  do  away 
with  contract  and  supply  abuses  and  scandals.  On 
account  of  poor  health  he  was  unable  to  accept  the 
invitation  given  by  Grant  to  become  a  member  of 
his  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 

When,  iul879,  Mr.  Stuart's  firm  went  into  liquida- 
tion, he  lost  his  entire  fortune,  and  he  had  to  begin 
again  at  sixty-three.  Some  of  his  friends  arranged 
to  start  a  new  bank,  of  which  he  was  made  presi- 
dent,— the  Merchants  National.  The  stock  was  at 
once  oversubscribed.  One  capitalist  who  became  a 
director,  contrary  to  his  custom  up  to  that  time,  said 
that  he  was  led  to  do  this  because  of  Mr.  Stuart's 
kindness  to  him  when,  as  a  boy,  he  used  to  call  at 
Stuart  and  Brothers  on  business  for  his  emi^loyers. 

In  1875  Mr.  Stuart  was  the  chairman  of  the  Lay- 
[46] 


GEORGE  H.  STUART 


meu's  Committee  liaviDg  charge  of  the  business 
matters  lu  couuectiou  with  the  great  Moody  and 
Sankey  meetings  in  Philadeli)hia.  John  Wana- 
maker  had  just  bought  the  Pennsylvania  Raihoad 
freight  depot  at  Thirteenth  and  Market  Streets,  and 
he  gave  the  use  of  this  for  the  meetings.  When 
ready  for  the  campaign,  the  building  contained  ten 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  sixty  chairs.  Mr.  Stuart 
appreciated,  as  not  all  did,  the  need  for  arranging 
accommodations  on  a  large  scale.  Concerning  these 
preparations  he  wrote : 

"  While  I  was  superintending  the  work  of  prep- 
aration, on  a  cold  day  in  October,  the  building 
being  unheated,  one  of  our  prominent  ministers  haj)- 
pened  to  come  in,  and  asked  me  how  many  seats 
were  being  provided.  When  I  told  him  fhe  number 
he  expressed  great  astonishment,  saying,  '  Why, 
Spurgeon  could  not  fill  these  chairs  on  every  week 
night  but  Saturday  ;  and  do  you  expect  Moody  to 
fill  themr  I  told  him  that  I  did.  Shortly  after- 
wards this  same  minister  said  to  a  friend  of  mine, 
after  relating  the  circumstance  referred  to,  that  he 
never  before  thought  that  I  was  a  fit  subject  for  an 
insane  asylum.  While  the  doors  were  closed  on  a 
cold  winter  night  in  January,  and  orders  had  been 
given  to  allow  no  other  persons  to  come  in,  the 
house  being  crowded,  this  same  minister  knocked  at 
the  door  and  had  his  card  sent  up  to  me  on  the  plat- 
form, with  a  request  that  I  would  have  him  let  in, 
which  I  did.'^ 

In  all  his  activities  Mr.  Stuart  was  moved  by  an 
overpowering  desire  to  serve.      He  was  naturally 

[47] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


very  diffident,  and,  as  his  son  George  H.  Stuart,  Jr., 
says,  ''  until  the  revival  of  1857,  he  was  almost 
afraid  to  hear  his  own  voice. '^  He  was  a  very 
methodical  man,  exact  in  every  detail  of  business  ; 
and  his  two  favorite  mottoes  were,  "  Occupy  till  I 
come,"  and,  "It  is  better  to  wear  out  than  to  rust 
out." 

He  suffered  severely  from  asthma,  spending  much 
of  his  time  toward  the  close  of  his  life  at  the  Clifton 
Springs  Sanitarium,  New  York,  and  there  doing 
much  personal  work  for  his  Master.  He  was  most 
magnetic  and  winsome,  with  the  ability  to  become 
intimate  on  short  acquaintance  with  men  of  all 
walks  of  life. 

"  If  he  had  subordinated  his  religious  enthusiasm 
to  business  opportunity,"  says  his  son,  "he  would 
have  been  very  wealthy."  But  Mr.  Stuart,  while  an 
able  business  man,  put  the  business  of  the  kingdom 
'  first,  and  consequently  much  was  added  to  the  sum 
total  of  his  useful  life. 

A  few  days  after  his  death  in  1890,  these  lines 
were  found  in  a  letter  case,  where  he  had  placed 
them  : 

"  I  live  for  those  who  love  me, 

For  those  who  know  me  true, 
For  the  heavens  that  bend  above  me, 

And  the  good  that  I  can  do  ; 
For  the  cause  that  needs  assistance, 
For  the  wrongs  that  lack  resistance, 
For  the  future  in  the  distance, 

And  the  good  that  I  can  do." 

Thesie  lines  sound  the  keynote  of  his  life. 

[48] 


IV 

Stephen  Paxson 

Pioneer  and  Light- Giver 
in  the  Middle  West 


A  most  satisfactory  biography  of  this  strikingly 
courageous  a?id  original  pio?ieer  in  the  field  of  relig- 
ious education  is  the  volume  by  his  daughter ^  Belle 
Paxson  Drury,  "  A  Fruitful  Life" 


ly 

STEPHEN  PAXSON 

This  is  the  story  of  a  lame  and  stainmeriug  boy  of 
the  pioneer  days  in  the  Middle  West,  a  boy  whose 
home  was  broken  u^d  by  his  father's  death,  and  who 
had  no  schooling  aside  from  the  toil  of  the  farm  and 
a  hatter's  shop. 

But  this  boy  became  so  distinguished  in  the  call- 
ing to  which  he  was  devoted  in  his  mature  manhood 
that  he  was  in  great  demand  as  a  speaker  east  and 
west.  Thousands  remember  him  with  unspeakable 
gratitude  because  he  was  the  first  to  give  to  them, 
over  the  wide  area  of  his  travels,  good  books,  and 
the  Sunday  school. 

Stephen  Paxsou,  born  in  New  Lisbon,  Ohio, 
November  3,  1808,  was  the  next  to  the  youngest  of 
the  seven  childien  of  Joseph  and  Mary  Lester  Pax- 
son.  On  the  death  of  the  father  the  mother  was 
obliged  to  find  homes  for  the  children  among 
strangers.  Stephen  was  taken  into  the  home  of 
Quaker  folk,  who  agreed  to  send  him  to  school  three 
months  in  the  year.  He  was  so  nervous  on  his  first 
day  in  school  that  his  stammering  iDrevented  him 
from  giving  any  of  the  information  about  himself 
that  the  teacher  asked,  and  he  was  impatiently  sent 
home  to  remain  until  he  should  learn  to  talk.     That 

[51] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


ended  bis  school  days.     He  Lad,  of  course,  no  books, 
and  he  was  kept  at  farm  work. 

This  was  iuterrui^ted  by  a  severe  illness  which 
crij)X5led  him  for  months,  in  helplessness  and  agony, 
and  made  him  lame  for  life.  During  this  illness  his 
kindly  mistress,  EuphemiaFagan,  read  aloud  to  him 
from  the  story  of  Oelar,  a  wandering  Quaker 
preacher,  and  the  boy  was  so  deeply  impressed  that 
he  determined  some  day  to  ''travel  all  over  the 
world  "  J  but  as  he  was  ignorant  and  lame  and  un- 
able to  talk  well,  he  was  sure  that  he  could  not 
"hope  to  be  helpful  to  others  like  the  good  man  iu 
the  story." 

To  add  to  the  difficulties  that  faced  this  much- 
distressed  lad  he  became  so  lame  that  he  could  not 
even  do  farm  work,  so  he  was  apprenticed  to  a  hat- 
ter. He  was  called  "stuttering  Stephen."  He 
could  speak  only  with  difficulty,  and  he  could  not 
read.  But  as  he  went  home  from  work  he  would 
get  his  comj)anions'  help  in  learning  the  letters  on 
the  street  signs,  until  he  could  read  the  names. 
This,  and  the  study  of  old  newspapers,  enabled  him 
to  learn  to  read. 

But  Stephen  could  sing.  As  he  sang  his  stutter- 
ing speech  seemed  freed  from  its  bondage,  and  his 
memory  for  words  and  music  was  quick  and  reten- 
tive. 

When  he  decided  to  strike  out  for  himself,  armed 
with  his  trade,  his  cane,  his  cheery  songs,  frank  ig- 
norance, and  seventeen  cents,  he  walked  to  the  Ohio, 
started  to  work  his  passage  down  the  river,  and 
thus  set  forth  on  his  remarkable  life  i)ilgrimage. 
[52] 


STEPHEN  PAXSON 


He  went  from  state  to  state,  working  at  his  trade, 
learning  by  asking  questions  and  by  observation, 
and  at  twenty-one  found  himself  in  Tennessee. 
There,  on  one  occasion,  he  wanted  to  cross  a  stream. 
The  ferryman  was  absent,  but  he  saw  near  the  other 
side  a  girl  in  a  boat.  He  asked  her  help.  She 
gave  it.  They  were  interested  in  each  other,  and 
they  became  better  acquainted.  It  made  no  differ- 
ence to  Stephen  that  the  girl  was  the  daughter  of  a 
man  of  i)rominence.  In  a  few  months  he  had  won 
her  ;  they  were  married  October  18,  1830,  and  went 
to  live  in  Virginia. 

The  Paxsons  went  to  Illinois  in  1838,  and  in  Win- 
chester Stephen  met  with  substantial  success  in  his 
trade.  He  was  able  to  live  comfortably,  and  pro- 
vide educational  advantages  for  his  children.  He 
was  a  worldly  man,  a  particularly  good  dancer,  in 
spite  of  his  lame  ankle,  and  he  gave  a  fiddler  a 
yearly  retainer  so  that  he  might  have  music  when- 
ever he  pleased.  He  stood  entirely  aside  from  the 
church,  and  was  given  over  to  worldly  pursuits.  As 
in  the  case  of  many  another  man  of  that  type  whose 
life  course  has  been  suddenly  changed,  he  would 
have  scoffed  at  the  idea  that  he  would  ever  do  such 
work  as  that  in  which  he  became  preeminent.  But 
in  the  providence  of  God,  this  man's  vision  of  his 
true  place  in  the  world  came  before  long  with  over- 
whelming clearness. 

A  few  years  before  the  Paxsons  went  to  Illinois, 
the  American  Sunday-School  Union  had  resolved 
to  "establish  a  Sunday  school  in  every  destitute 
place  where  it  is  practicable  throughout  the  valley 

[53] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


of  the  Mississippi."  That  led  to  the  organizing  of 
11  Simday  school  at  Winchester.  In  this  school  lit- 
tle Mary  Paxson  was  a  pupil.  She  promised  one  day 
to  join  with  others  in  trying  to  bring  one  uewpapil, 
but  she  could  find  no  one  among  her  playmates  who 
would  go.  She  told  her  father  of  this,  and  said, 
"Father,  won't  you  go?"  He  did  for  her  what 
probably  no  one  else  could  have  persuaded  him  to 
do,  and  to  his  amazement  he  was  to  take  charge  of 
a  class  of  boys  whose  teacher  was  absent.  Of  course 
he  was  reluctant,  protesting  his  ignorance.  But  the 
boys  themselves  persuaded  him.  And  then  followed 
this  experience  narrated  by  his  biographer,  which 
was  pivotal  in  Stephen  Paxson 's  life  : 

"  He  took  his  seat  with  them  and  the  boys  pro- 
ceeded to  read  a  chapter,  helping  their  teacher  to 
IDronounce,  whenever  he  came  to  a  hard  word  in  his 
verse. 

"After  the  chapter  was  read,  he  supposed  that 
was  all  there  was  to  be  done,  and  closed  his  book. 
But  his  little  teacher  said,  '  Mr.  Paxson,  you  must 
now  ask  us  some  questions  on  the. lesson.^ 

' '  He  glanced  over  the  chapter,  and  not  perceiving 
any  questions  there,  he  replied  :  *  Boys,  I  guess 
there  are  no  questions  in  this  chapter.' 

' '  '  Oh  ! '  said  Wesley  Knox,  who  was  spokesman 
for  the  class,  *  you  must  go  to  the  library  and  get  a 
book  which  will  show  you  what  questions  to  ask.' 

"  '  What  do  you  call  a  library  "? '  said  Mr.  Paxson. 

"Wesley  replied:  'Do  you  see  that  dry-goods 
box  nailed  up  in  the  corner?  Well,  that's  the  li- 
brary.^ 

[54] 


STEPHEN  PAXSON 


''He  went  to  it  aud  said,  'Mr.  Librarian,  have 
you  a  book  here  that  asks  questions?'  He  was 
giveu  a  'Union  Consecutive  Question  Book'  and 
returned  to  the  class." 

Even  the  simiDle  use  of  this  book  was  too  much 
for  him,  and  when  the  class  adjourned  Mr.  Paxson 
realized  more  keenly  than  before  how  utterly  ig- 
norant he  was.  He  was  roused  now  to  his  own  con- 
dition, and  he  proposed  the  same  lesson  for  the  next 
Sunday,  so  that  he  could  study  it  thoroughly.  And 
this  man,  who  did  not  even  know  what  a  library 
was,  lived  to  scatter  Sunday-school  libraries  over 
the  pioneer  regions  of  the  Middle  West,  and  to 
point  countless  teachers  and  other  workers  to  higher 
ideals  of  preparation  and  service. 

Everything  became  new  for  him  now.  He  was 
converted,  and  united  with  the  Church.  He  began 
to  study.  He  attended  the  home  school  in  the 
mornings,  and  in  the  afternoons  he  was  away  in 
other  neighborhoods,  starting  new  schools  or  bring- 
ing old  schools  to  life.  Because  of  his  ignorance 
aud  the  inquiring  state  of  mind  he  found  among 
Sunday-school  workers,  he  began  to  hold  mass- 
meetings  of  neighboring  schools,  in  which  teach- 
ers exchanged  experiences.  This  led  him  to  ar- 
range for  county  conventions,  and  thus  he  was  a 
l^ioneer  in  the  vast  system  of  district,  townshij^, 
county  and  state  conventions  of  which  some  seven- 
teen thousand  are  now  held  annually  in  North 
America. 

Aud  now,  under  his  larger  call  to  service,  Paxson 
believed  that  if  he  had  been  able  to  overcome  his 

[55] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


lameness  so  well  as  to  excel  in  dancing,  and  walk 
twenty  miles  a  day  even  when  blood  oozed  from  his 
ankle,  he  ought  to  be  able  to  overcome  his  stam- 
mering. He  did  discover  how  to  do  it,  and  he  was 
quickened  more  than  ever  to  broader  service.  He 
thought  of  the  wilderness  destitution,  and  he  put 
himself  wholly  in  God's  hands  for  guidance,  in  his 
longing  to  give  his  whole  time  to  meeting  the  need. 
Some  things  that  had  seemed  important  to  this 
keen  minded  business  man  had  faded  away  in  the 
light  of  the  new  vision. 

In  1848  he  was  commissioned  as  a  missionary  by 
the  American  Sunday -School  Union,  largely  through 
the  influence  of  Dr.  John  Adams,  from  1810  to  1833 
principal  of  Phillips  Andover  Academy,  and  in 
1833  active  in  religious  work  in  Illinois.  Paxsou 
was  to  have  a  salary  of  one  dollar  a  day  for  each 
day  he  worked.  Because  this  was  not  enough  upon 
which  to  live  in  the  village,  he  moved  to  a  piece  of 
wilderness  land  in  Pike  County,  and  built  a  log 
cabin  on  Hickory  Hill.  From  this  place  he  trav- 
eled with  horse  and  buggy  up  and  down  the  region 
round  about  the  new  home,  avoiding  towns,  and 
reaching  in  destitute  places  the  solitary  and  the  un- 
evangelized. 

One  horse  of  his,  ''Eobert  Eaikes,"  named  for 
the  chief  founder  of  the  modern  Sunday  school,  be- 
came famous.  '^Bob"  took  his  master  on  his  jour- 
neyings  about  seventy-five  thousand  miles.  Mr. 
Paxson  said,  "  that  horse  wouldn't  go  by  a  school- 
house  without  having  his  driver  get  out  and  visit 
it,  any  more  than  some  horses  would  go  by  a  county 

[56] 


STEPHEN  PAXSON 


tavern  without  stopping  ;  and  he  would  always  slow 
up  when  he  saw  a  child  by  the  roadside." 

It  was  often  hard  for  Stei^hen  Paxson  to  impress 
uj)on  the  pioneers  of  that  country  their  own  needs. 
Sometimes  in  meetings  he  used  to  tell  this  story 
with  an  effectiveness  that  may  well  be  imagined : 

"I  met  a  boy  on  the  road  one  day.  I  stopped 
my  horse  and  inquired  of  him  the  way  to  Mr. 
Brown's  house.  The  lad  was  walking,  so  I  asked 
him  to  get  into  my  buggy  and  ride.  As  we  jogged 
along  I  asked  him  questions,  as  is  always  my  cus- 
tom, in  the  hope  of  awakening  some  interest  in  his 
young  mind  for  something  above  the  sordid  affairs 
of  time.  I  began  by  asking  him  his  age.  '  Four- 
teen,' was  the  rej)ly.  I  then  inquired  if  he  could 
tell  me  who  died  to  save  sinners.  He  responded 
promptly  :  '  Nobody  has  died  .for  sinners  in  our 
neighborhood  ;  leastways,  if  anybody  has,  I  never 
hearn  tell  of  it. ' 

''I  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to  have  a  book 
which  would  tell  him  all  about  who  died  to  save 
sinners. 

** '  Oh,  yes  ! '  was  the  response.  '  I'd  give  a  heap 
for  a  book,  for  I've  been  wanting  something  besides 
my  old  speller  for  a  long  time. ' 

"  '  How  much  would  you  give  ? '  I  inquired. 

"  He  pulled  out  a  handful  of  marbles  and  an  old 
knife  from  his  pocket,  saying  : 
All  I've  got,  these  'ere.' 


U   i 

"  I  explained  to  him  that  if  he  would  attend  the 
Sunday  school  I  was  about  to  organize  near  his 
home,  he  could  get  a  new  book  to  read  every  Sun- 

[57] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


day,  and  for  uothiDg.  He  was  delighted  at  the 
prospect,  aud  said  that  if  his  father  would  let  him 
off  from  fishing  and  hunting  on  that  day,  he  would 
come  *  certain.'  " 

When  years  had  passed  by,  Mr.  Paxson  learned 
the  sequel.  The  ignorant  boy  was  awakened  to  a 
new  life  in  that  Sunday  school,  and  was  pursuing  a 
course  of  study  in  college  preparatory  to  entering 
the  ministry. 

The  American  Sunday-School  Union,  as  time 
went  on,  used  to  have  Mr.  Paxson  spend  his  winters 
in  the  East,  telling  the  story  of  his  work.  The  lame 
and  stammering  boy  of  the  earlier  days  was  now  a 
man  of  rugged  and  commanding  presence,  eloquent, 
forceful,  welcome  in  the  strongest  churches,  and  in 
whatever  home  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  him 
as  a  guest. 

He  was  not  without  temptations  to  turn  aside  from 
the  specific  task  to  which  God  had  called  him.  One 
who  knew  his  familiarity  with  western  lands  offered 
him  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  invest,  promising  him 
an  equal  share  in  the  profits.  Paxson  did  not  accept 
the  offer.  ''Years  afterwards,"  his  daughter  has 
said,  "  Mr.  Paxson  and  his  business  friend  comi)ared 
notes.  His  friend  had  doubled  the  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  Mr.  Paxson  drew  his  memorandum  book, 
pointed  to  the  record  that  fifty  thousand  pupils  had 
been  gathered  into  Sunday  school  up  to  that  time,  and 
said,  '  I  would  not  alter  the  record  or  change  the  in- 
vestment. ' ' ' 

After  thirty  years  of  missionary  travel  Mr.  Paxson 
was  given  the  less  taxing  position  of  head  of  the 

[58] 


STEPHEN  PAXSON 


Book  Depository  of  the  American  Suuday-ScLool 
Union  in  St.  Louis,  and  to  that  city  lie  moved  in 
1868.  There  he  j^roved  himself  a  thorough  business 
mau.  Each  day's  business  must  be  done  within  the 
day.     A  left-over  order  he  called  a  "cripple." 

Still  he  attended  conventions  ;  and  he  was  always 
an  outstanding  figure  in  such  gatherings.  Every- 
body loved  him.  His  daughter  tells  of  the  way  he 
got  on  with  others  when  traveling. 

''  It  was  interesting  to  see  him  enter  a  car  full  of 
people,  all  demurely  reading  or  perfectly  silent,  as  if 
afraid  of  some  contamination  if  they  touched  or  spoke 
to  each  other.  Before  he  had  been  present  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  his  keen  eye  had  observed  every  face, 
and  he  discovered  this  man  whom  he  once  met  in 
Maine,  shook  hands  with  that  friend  from  Colorado, 
and  bowed  to  a  lady  whom  he  once  made  superin- 
tendent of  a  Sunday  school  because  no  man  could 
be  found  to  fill  the  office.  He  would  introduce  these 
various  people  to  one  another,  get  them  to  take  seats 
together,  open  his  satchel  and  distribute  music 
books  to  them,  and  to  any  straugers  who  would  take 
them.  He  would  remember  having  seen  some  men 
with  musical  instruments  as  he  was  passing  through 
another  car,  and,  retiring  a  moment,  he  would  re- 
turn with  them.  He  would  then  decide  upon  some 
song  all  could  sing,  and  the  music  and  the  singing 
would  begin.  Spectators,  somewhat  surprised  at 
first  at  his  proceedings,  would  naturally  draw 
nearer  and  join  in.  As  new  people  came  in  at  the 
various  stations,  they  would  at  first  seat  themselves 
demurely  and  look  on  wonderingly  ;  then,  catching 
[59] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


the  contagion  of  the  good  time  the  crowd  were  hav- 
ing, they  would  soon  be  one  with  them.  So,  plung- 
ing through  the  forest  and  sweeping  over  the  plain, 
the  noise  of  the  singing  and  laughing — for  he  would 
sometimes  tell  a  story  between  songs— mingled  with 
the  rumble  of  the  train  and  the  shriek  of  the  engine, 
made  the  travelers  feel  the  truth  that  *  all  the  world 
is  kin.'  '^ 

Stephen  Paxson's  last  letter  was  written  to  the 
wife  of  a  man  whom  he  was  urging  to  become  a 
Sunday-school  missionary.  He  was  already  giving 
by  word  and  deed  that  "higher  rating"  to  the 
Sunday  school  still  further  given  to  it  by  men  of 
large  affairs  in  our  own  day.  He  organized  more 
than  thirteen  hundred  Sunday  schools,  with  eighty- 
three  thousand  pupils  and  teachers.  Out  of  his 
pioneer,  far-reaching,  and  highly  resultful  service 
this  obedient  and  self-forgetting  worker  passed 
quietly  into  the  new  country  of  his  desire,  and  his 
last  words  were  "  Eest,  rest,  rest !  " 

The  chairman  of  the  first  International  Sunday- 
School  Convention,  held  in  1872  at  Indianapolis, 
said  of  him  that  which  might  rejoice  the  heart  of  any 
man  :  "  You  will  find  a  broad  belt  of  light  through 
central  lUnois  and  northern  Missouri,  caused  by  the 
labors  for  forty  years  of  the  pioneer  Sunday-school 
missionary.'' 


[60] 


John  H.  Converse 

Builder  of  Locomotives  and 
Christian  Enterprise 


There  is  tiofull  biography  of  Mr.  Converse y  but 
his  life  offers  ample  material  for  a  volume  of  endur- 
ifig  value. 


JOHN  H.  CONVERSE 

If  j^ou  liad  come  unexpectedly  into  a  committee 
room  where  John  H.  Converse  was  presiding,  you 
would  have  thought  him  almost  a  visitor.  Discus- 
sion might  be  lively  enough  around  the  table,  but 
the  quiet  man  at  the  head  would  seem  to  be  merely 
a  listener,  until  the  talk  showed  signs  of  wandering 
from  the  point  at  issue,  or  until  a  decision  needed  to 
be  reached.  Then  you  would  hear  him  say  just  a 
few  words  that  resolved  discussion,  and  brought 
conclusions. 

It  was  so  when  one  called  on  him  in  his  modest  of- 
fice in  the  huge  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works  in 
Philadelphia,  of  which  he  was  the  head.  Sometimes 
he  would  stand  for  as  much  as  a  half  hour  at  the  rail 
of  the  outer  office  talking  with  some  one  who  was 
likely  to  do  most  of  the  talking  while  Mr.  Converse 
listened, — and  decided.  Or,  again,  he  would  invite 
the  caller  to  an  easy  chair  in  the  inner  office,  and  sit 
down  near  him  like  a  man  of  leisure,  genial  and 
kindly  and  attentive,  yet  not  giving  the  impression 
that  he  thought  either  had  time  to  waste.  If,  how- 
ever, the  visitor  brought  to  him  inflated  ideas,  he 
would  puncture  them  so  neatly  that  the  listener 
hardly  realized  what  had  happened,  and  if  the  ex- 
pressed ideas  were  vague,  whether  the  caller  knew 

[63] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


it  at  the  beginning  or  not,  he  knew  it  when  Mr. 
Converse  got  through  with  him. 

Mr.  Converse  was  a  man  of  medium  height,  of 
fairly  large  frame,  and  with  a  face  whose  strong 
lines  and  sober  expression  would  take  on  an  unfor- 
getably  kind  and  friendly  look  when  he  was  drawn 
into  conversation.  He  was  ordinarily  reticent,  but 
most  approachable,  and  lavish  in  his  bestowal  of 
time  and  money.  Governor  Stuart  of  Pennsylvania 
said  of  him,  as  indicating  Mr.  Converse's  devotion  to 
good  works,  ' '  He  not  only  gives  his  money,  but  he 
is  willing  to  shovel  coal." 

This  sound-minded,  generous- hearted  man  of 
large  affairs  grew  up  with  the  vast  railroad  inter- 
ests of  America,  and  indeed  of  the  world.  He  was 
the  fourth  of  the  seven  children  of  Rev.  John  Ken- 
drick  and  Sarah  Allen  Converse,  and  was  born  in 
Burlington,  Vermont,  December  2,  1840.  He  was 
a  public  school  boy,  very  independent  in  spirit,  very 
much  alive  to  neighborhood  doings,  and  even  then 
so  much  interested  in  railroads  that  he  spent  a  good 
deal  of  his  time  about  the  yards,  and  made  a  wooden 
model  locomotive  for  himself.  He  studied  teleg- 
raphy, too,  and  as  a  boy  of  fourteen  was  the  operator 
at  Essex  Junction,  on  what  is  now  the  Central  Ver- 
mont Eailway. 

He  entered  the  University  of  Vermont  in  1857. 
He  worked  during  vacations,  and  while  station 
agent  and  operator  he  learned  stenography.  On  an- 
other vacation  he  served  as  a  reporter  for  the  State 
Legislature.  He  took  a  high  stand  in  scholarship, 
but  when  elected  to  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  he  did  not 
[64] 


JOHN  H.  CONVERSE 


join  at  once  because  he  did  not  have  the  five  dollars 
for  the  pin. 

Mr.  Converse  went  into  newspaper  work  after 
graduating  from  college.  During  his  three  years' 
connection  with  the  Burlington  Daily  and  Weekly 
Times,  his  duties  included  telegraphing,  news-gath- 
ering, editorial  writing  and  even  the  mechanical 
work  of  printing  the  sheet.  He  was  one  of  the 
operators  who  could  take  telegraphic  messages  from 
sound,  without  reading  the  characters  on  the  tape. 

When  Converse  was  twenty-four,  he  was  offered 
the  post  of  official  reporter  for  the  State  of  Vermont. 
This  work  was  in  the  line  of  his  ability,  and  might 
be  a  step  toward  larger  public  service.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  he  was  offered  a  position  as  clerk  in 
the  office  of  Dr.  Edward  H.  Williams,  Superintend- 
ent of  the  Galena  Division  of  the  Chicago  and 
Northwestern  Eailroad,  to  whose  notice  he  had  been 
brought  through  a  college  friend.  The  salary  was 
less  than  in  the  state  office,  but  young  Converse  felt 
that  the  railroad  call  was  his  chance  for  larger  serv- 
ice, and  he  accepted  it.  It  was  a  pivotal  decision, 
for  it  introduced  him  at  once  to  men  and  enterprises 
that  shaped  his  business  future,  and  to  one  man  who 
set  before  him,  as  early  as  the  sixties,  evangelistic 
ideals  that  Mr.  Converse  was  able  to  carry  out  and 
endow  on  a  large  scale  forty  years  later.  D.  L. 
Moody  was  conducting  services  in  a  passenger  car 
in  the  Chicago  Eailroad  yards,  and  the  young  rail- 
road man  saw  much  of  him. 

In  the  two  years  spent  in  Chicago  Mr.  Converse 
had  great  responsibility.     He  was  Doctor  Williams' 

[65] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


right-hand  man  in  everything.  For  some  time  he 
was  his  only  clerk.  He  lived  aud  worked  among 
the  fundamentals  of  railroading  at  a  time  of  great 
expansion  in  properties  and  in  the  very  intricate  re- 
lations among  the  various  roads.  He  was  prepar- 
ing for  yet  larger  service,  and  was  in  contact  with 
men  of  enterprise  and  vision. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War,  Thomas  A. 
Scott  was  the  General  Manager  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Eailroad.  He  was  appointed  Quartermaster  General 
of  Transportation.  In  that  of&ce  he  gained  new  views 
of  the  tremendous  possibilities  of  the  American  rail- 
road, and  persuaded  President  Thompson  of  the 
Pennsylvania  to  let  him  seek  the  biggest  available 
railroad  man  and  put  him  in  charge  of  the  operat- 
ing departments.  Scott  went  west  into  the  heart  of 
the  newer  railroad  country,  and  there  selected  Doctor 
Williams  as  the  man  he  wanted,  and  brought  him  to 
Altoona,  Pennsylvania,  in  1866.  John  Converse 
came  with  him. 

A  few  years  later  the  Pennsylvania  had  a  great 
strike  to  contend  with,  the  burden  of  which  rested 
so  heavily  upon  Doctor  Williams  that  his  health  was 
somewhat  broken.  In  1870  he  bought  an  interest  in 
the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works,  sending  Mr.  Con- 
verse on  ahead  of  him  as  his  representative  until  he 
should  himself  appear  on  the  scene  of  action.  And 
Converse  very  early  started  in  to  modernize  the  con- 
duct of  the  concern's  business.  He  introduced 
office  methods  then  radical  in  their  newness,  though 
now  considered  essentials  of  good  business. 

Up  to  that  time  there  were  no  specifications  for 
[66] 


JOHN  H.  CONVERSE 


the  buildiDg  of  the  firm's  locomotives.  Au  inquiry 
would  come  from  a  road  for  a  locomotive  of  a  cer- 
tain type,  and  a  i^rice  would  be  given  by  a  personal 
band- written  letter  from  one  of  the  firm.  When  the 
order  was  received,  it  was  filled  on  the  basis  of  the 
price  and  purely  general  description  of  the  type  and 
size  desired.  Mr.  Converse  was  instrumental  in 
changing  this  method  to  the  careful  specification 
plan.     He  became  a  member  of  the  firm  in  1873. 

The  hard  work  of  the  partner  counted.  In  1866, 
when  Matthias  W.  Baldwin  died,  the  works  were 
turning  out  one  hundred  and  eighteen  locomotives  a 
year.  Mr.  Converse  lived  to  seethe  production  rise 
to  two  thousand  a  year. 

Mr.  Converse  was  always  a  hard  worker,  even  in 
the  days  of  changing  health  and  growing  wealth. 
When,  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  he 
was  relieved  of  the  most  of  his  office  work,  lie  spent 
himself  more  freely  than  ever  in  religious  enter- 
prises, and  in  civic  causes. 

It  was  his  habit  to  leave  his  suburban  home  at 
Eosemont  in  time  to  reach  his  office  at  eight ;  then 
he  worked  until  the  late  afternoon  hours.  He  laid 
great  responsibility  upon  his  younger  coworkers. 
In  1890  he  was  about  to  take  his  first  trip  to  Europe. 
As  the  day  of  sailing  drew  near,  his  partner.  Alba 
B.  Johnson,  expectantly  awaited  some  final  instruc- 
tions from  his  senior.  Bat  the  routine  went  on  quite 
as  usual.  On  the  afternoon  before  he  was  to  leave 
Philadelphia,  Mr.  Converse  was  at  the  works  until 
late,  and  at  six  o'clock  he  left  the  office,  simply  say- 
ing good- by  to  those  about  him.     During  his  ab- 

[67] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


sence  he  sent  no  directions  as  to  the  commercial 
operation  of  the  great  establishment.  That  was  Mr. 
Converse's  way  with  men  upon  whom  he  relied. 
Others  he  would  not  have  around  him. 

It  was  so  in  details  also.  When  Mr.  Johnson  was 
his  clerk  and  right  hand  in  all  sorts  of  details,  Mr. 
Converse  would  go  over  the  daily  mail  with  him. 
He  would  mark  ''yes''  or  "no"  on  the  letters, 
hand  them  over  to  his  helper,  and  then  the  clerk 
would  clean  that  mail  up  within  the  day ;  and  it 
would  include  a  great  variety  of  matters  having  to 
do  with  orders,  sales,  negotiations,  specifications, 
et  cetera.  It  was  left  to  Mr.  Johnson  to  prepare 
nearly  all  the  answers.  That  was  great  training  for 
the  younger  man,  and  it  showed  how  Mr.  Converse 
himself  had  learned  the  art  of  executive  manage- 
ment by  his  own  early  and  later  experiences. 

It  was  this  far-sighted  and  whole-hearted  reliance 
upon  men  in  training  that  as  much  as  any  other  one 
habit  of  mind  gave  to  Mr.  Converse  time  for  Chris- 
tian work  outside  his  office.  He  did  not  worry. 
His  faith  was  not  a  mere  theory  to  be  preached  in 
words,  but  a  practical  matter  to  be  applied  to  daily 
living.  He  concentrated  upon  the  task  in  hand, 
and  did  not  take  on  the  needless  burdens  of  an  un- 
seen future.  His  whole  nature  turned  with  increas- 
ing zeal  to  Christian  service  of  many  kinds,  but 
most  of  all  to  the  work  of  evangelism.  Individual 
soul-winning  engaged  him  far  more  than  most  of 
those  associated  with  him  in  organized  work  could 
realize. 

One  day  he  telephoned  to  Henry  Clay  Trumbull, 
[68] 


JOHN  H.   CONVERSE 


then  a  shut-in,  to  inquire  if  he  might  bring  to  call 
upon  him  a  man  whom  Mr.  Converse  was  trying  to 
lead  to  Christ.  He  thought  that  perhaps  Doctor 
Trumbull  might  be  able  to  add  something  to  what 
had  already  been  said.  Accordingly,  he  drove  in  a 
carriage  to  Doctor  Trumbull's  home,  with  the  man 
in  whom  both  were  now  interested,  and  the  three 
had  the  interview  that  the  man  of  large  business 
did  not  count  too  small  to  occupy  his  time. 

In  April,  1898,  D.  L.  Moody  was  not  very  far 
from  the  close  of  his  earthly  life,  and  John  H. 
Converse  was  giving  time  lavishly  and  money  in 
large  sums  to  the  work  of  the  kingdom.  At  the 
April  meeting  of  the  Presbyterian  Social  Union 
in  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Moody  was  the  speaker,  and 
Mr.  Converse  was  present.  Mr.  Johnson  thus  de- 
scribes that  occasion  : 

*'Mr.  Moody  took  for  his  subject  the  mistakes 
which  had  been  made  by  him  during  his  evangel- 
istic work,  and  especially  his  failure  to  create  a 
permanent  evangelistic  committee  to  perpetuate  the 
revival  work  which,  with  Ira  D.  Sankey,  he  had 
carried  on  in  Philadelphia  during  the  winter  of 
1875-1876.  GrowiDg  eloquent  with  his  subject,  he 
challenged  the  churches  of  Philadelphia  to  take  up 
this  work  and  retrieve  the  errors  of  his  earlier  ex- 
perience. He  declared  that  the  churches  of  Phila- 
delphia should  raise  a  million  dollars  annually  for 
evangelistic  work.  At  the  close  of  his  address 
there  was  no  other  speaker  arranged  to  follow  him, 
and  Mr.  Converse  moved  that  the  subject  be  re- 
ferred to  a  committee.     Mr.  Converse  was  appointed 

[69] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


cbiiirmau  of  this  committee,  and  believiDg  that  the 
work  should  not  at  the  outset  be  hampered  for 
funds,  he  contributed  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
annually,  for  three  years,  to  establish  it  upon  a  firm 
basis.  This  was  the  beginning  of  summer  evan- 
gelistic services  in  Philadelphia,  which  have  since 
been  continuously  maintained.  The  subject  of 
evangelism  was  then  brought  before  the  Geneial 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The  local 
work  having  been  entrusted  to  a  committee  charged 
with  the  duty  of  raising  the  funds  for  its  continu- 
ance, Mr.  Converse  assumed  the  burden  of  national 
evangelism.  As  this  great  work  expanded,  his  in- 
terest in  it  increased.  He  placed  J.  Wilbur  Chap- 
man, D.  D.,  with  competent  assistants,  in  charge, 
who,  after  holding  meetings  with  great  success  in 
different  parts  of  America,  carried  the  work  to 
Australia,  the  Philippines,  China,  Korea,  Japan, 
Canada,  England  and  Wales. 

"  Mr.  Converse's  enthusiasm  in  carrying  the  gos- 
pel to  every  creature  was  so  great,  that  during  his 
lifetime  he  created  a  trust  fund  of  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  the  income  of  which  was  to  be 
used  to  conduct  the  work  during  his  lifetime  and 
guarantee  its  continuance  after  his  death." 

The  story  is  told  of  one  of  the  numberless  bene- 
factions of  Mr.  Converse  which  might  not  pass  the 
censorship  of  regulated  charities,  but  which  never- 
theless warms  the  heart.  A  man,  evidently  a  ha- 
bitual drunkard,  used  to  call  quite  often  to  see  Mr. 
Converse,  and  invariably  would  receive  money  from 
him.  During  a  somewhat  prolonged  absence  of  Mr. 
[70] 


JOHN  H.  CONVERSE 


Converse,  it  fell  to  Mr.  Johnson's  lot  to  care  for 
this  dependent.  He  persuaded  the  man  to  take  a 
cure  for  the  drink  habit,  sent  him  to  the  institution 
at  his  own  expense,  and  was  rejoiced  to  find  the  man 
restored  to  sane  living  once  more.  But  it  was  not  long 
before  he  appeared  again  in  the  old  condition,  and 
Mr.  Johnson  decided  he  ought  not  to  give  him  any 
more  money.  When  Mr.  Converse  returned,  the 
man  resumed  his  visits,  with  the  usual  result. 

''Mr.  Converse,"  asked  Mr.  Johnson  one  day, 
"I  wish  you  would  tell  me  just  why  you  keep  on 
giving  money  to  that  man,  when  he  is  so  obviously 
unworthy  ?  " 

"  Come  inside,"  said  Mr.  Converse.  They  passed 
into  the  inner  private  office.  Turning  to  his  ques- 
tioner the  older  man  said  with  an  earnestness  not  to 
be  forgotten  : 

*'  Mr.  Johnson,  when  I  think  of  God's  mercy  to 
me,  in  spite  of  all  my  faults,  I  cannot  withhold  the 
little  that  I  can  do." 

Nothing  more  was  said  on  that  subject. 

Even  Mr.  Converse's  large  gifts  seemed  to  him 
inadequate.  One  day  toward  the  close  of  his  life 
when  he  was  at  lunch  with  Mr.  Johnson,  he  was 
asked  what  form  of  giving  he  favored  most.  Mr. 
Converse  thought  his  friend  referred  to  methods  of 
giving,  and  replied  : 

"Many  men  give  a  tenth  of  their  income,  and 
feel  that  that  amount  has  been  established  by  Scrip- 
ture and  by  custom  among  Christians  ;  but  the 
mercies  which  my  heavenly  Father  has  bestowed 
upon  me  have  been  such  as  to  make  me  feel  that  a 
[71] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


tenth  would  not  begin  to  requite  him.  In  the  last 
few  years  I  have  been  giving  away  from  two-thirds 
to  three-fourths  of  my  income." 

His  friend  and  partner  already  knew  that  in  one 
of  these  years  when  business  conditions  prevented 
the  Works  from  making  a  profit,  these  gifts 
amounted  to  about  six  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

It  is  well  to  know  the  factors  that  entered  into 
the  success  of  a  man  like  John  H.  Converse,  as  re- 
vealed in  his  habits  and  achievements.  He  was  a 
worker.  He  was  an  executive.  He  was  a  man  of 
methodical  habits,  sound  sense,  and  conservative 
views.  He  had  no  desire  for  ostentation.  It  was  a 
long  while  before  he  would  buy  an  automobile, 
even  when  the  machines  had  become  comparatively 
common.  He  was  as  faithful  and  as  thorough  in 
keeping  the  Minutes  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
Presbyterian  Hospital  as  he  was  in  the  big  affairs  of 
the  Works. 

After  he  was  fifty  years  old  he  learned  to  play  the 
violin,  and  others  of  his  family  learned  other  instru- 
ments. On  Thursday  evenings  it  was  his  habit  to 
use  the  services  of  two  professional  musicians,  who 
would  lead  him  and  his  family  in  concert  music. 
And  this  man  of  simple  tastes  and  large  affairs 
gathered  in  his  home,  ^^Chetwynd,"  a  collection  of 
fine  paintings  notable  for  its  distinctive  examples  of 
the  works  of  modern  masters. 

The  range  of  his  interests  included  the  directorate 

of  several  banks  ;  societies  devoted  to  the  arts  and 

sciences  ;  educational  institutions  ;  the  official  boards 

of  his  home  church  at  Bryn  Mawr,  and  of  Calvary 

[72] 


JOHN  H.   CONVERSE 


Church  in  Philadelphia  ;  the  Bible  class  that  he 
taught ;  and  the  world-wide  evangelistic  work  that 
he  organized  and  endowed. 

Heavy  sorrows  came  to  Mr.  Converse  in  his  clos- 
ing years,  but  he  did  not  abate  his  zeal  for  Christ's 
kiugdom.  The  sudden  death  of  his  wife  in  1906 
was  a  severe  shock  to  him.  In  the  same  year  the 
failure  of  a  bank  in  which  he  was  a  director,  through 
the  dealings  of  one  who  was  widely  trusted,  bore 
upon  him  heavily  both  on  account  of  the  nature  of 
the  case  and  the  obligations  that  he  with  others 
chose  to  assume  to  guard  stockholders  against  any 
loss. 

Underneath  all  the  urgency  of  spirit  and  competent 
grasp  of  practical  affairs  that  marked  Mr.  Converse 
so  distinctively  was  a  very  simple  and  humble 
Christian  faith.  Mr.  Johnson  has  told  thus  of  one 
occasion  on  which  he  came  to  his  older  friend  with  a 
very  real  spiritual  problem  : 

' '  Some  years  ago,  when  much  concerned  with 
respect  to  certain  religious  problems,  I  read  in  a 
nominally  religious,  but  actually  agnostic,  maga- 
zine various  articles  discrediting  theological  beliefs 
which  I  had  always  held  sacred.  At  last,  one  of 
these  appeared  so  convincing  in  its  logic  aud  so 
damaging  in  its  effect,  that  it  seemed  to  sweep  away 
the  foundations  of  my  religious  belief.  I  brought 
the  periodical  to  Mr.  Converse  and  asked  him  to 
read  it  and  tell  me  what  he  thought  of  it.  He  read 
it  through  carefully,  and  then  stated  that  it  did  not 
shake  his  faith  nor  cause  him  anxiety,  because  it 
did  not  alter  the  fundamental  fact  upon  which  his 

[73] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


faith  iu  Jesus  Christ  was  based,  namely,  that  Jesus 
came  iuto  the  world  to  save  the  i3eople  from  their 
sius,  aud  that  do  other  religion  ever  had  or  ever 
could  save  from  sin.  The  influence  of  his  simple, 
impregnable  faith  exercised  a  powerful  effect  upon 
me,  as  it  has  done  upon  many  others." 

Perhaps  nothing  can  reveal  the  inner  life  of  Mr. 
Converse  more  clearly,  or  better  define  the  dynamic 
that  accounts  for  his  noble  service  in  business  and 
in  religious  work,  than  a  letter  that  he  wrote  in  re- 
sponse to  a  request  for  a  statement  on  the  subject, 
"  Why  I  am  a  Christian  ''  : 

*'  By  the  grace  of  God,  I  try  to  be  a  Christian  be- 
cause I  am  conscious  of  my  own  natural  siufuluess 
and  selfishness,  and  find  in  Jesus  only  my  hope  of 
salvation  from  my  sins  and  from  the  punishment 
due  to  them. 

' '  I  am  a  Christian  because  the  life  and  teachings 
of  Christ  impress  me  as  the  most  sublime  and  perfect 
system  of  truth  ever  revealed  to  man.  Surely  '  no 
man  ever  spake  like  this  man.'  No  human  philos- 
ophy can  so  satisfy  the  soul. 

"  I  am  a  Christian  because  Christ  has  revealed  to 
me  the  love  of  God,  and  I  feel  that  I  may  trust  him 
implicitly  to  care  for  me  and  protect  me.  '  His  ways 
are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  his  paths  are 
peace. ' 

''  And  finally  I  am  a  Christian  because  I  feel  that 
the  only  true  way  of  happiness  and  peace,  both  for 
this  life  and  the  life  which  is  to  come,  lies  in  follow- 
ing, as  nearly  as  may  be,  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

[74] 


JOHN  H.    CONVERSE 


Is  Dot  this  a  disclosure  of  the  real  heart  of  a  man 
who  to  a  remarkable  degree  was  enabled  of  God 
to  join  business  and  religion  in  a  working  partner- 
ship ? 


[75] 


VI 

John  S.  Huyler 

Friend  of  the  Outcast 


2'he  story  of  this  abounding  life  is  found  chiefly  in 
privately  printed  volume y  '*  In  Memory  of  John 
S.  Huyler." 


a 


VI 
JOHN  S-  HUYLER 

There  is  far  more  iu  a  box  of  ' '  Huyler's  ' '  than 
fine  coufectiouery. 

Thousands  of  waifs  and  strays,  thousands  of  re- 
deemed and  renewed  men  and  women,  thousands  of 
youDg  men  of  education  in  all  walks  of  life  would 
see  beneath  that  widely  advertised  name  what  the 
unknowing  world  cannot ;  for  literally  thousands, 
more,  indeed,  than  can  be  numbered,  have  cause  to 
be  grateful  to  the  man  behind  the  product,  to  the 
man  who  used  his  great  business  as  an  instrument  to 
be  placed  at  God's  disposal  for  use  in  uplifting  and 
caring  for  others. 

John  S.  Huyler  was  born  in  New  York  City, 
June  28,  1846.  His  father  was  a  successful  baker 
and  confectioner.  John  was  educated  in  the  public 
schools,  and  then  assisted  his  father.  But  he  had 
such  enterprise  and  business  vision  that  he  soon  be- 
gan to  work  out  ideas  that  proved  to  be  highly  suc- 
cessful. ''  Huyler's  Taif3^,  Fresh  Every  Hour  "  was 
the  beginning  of  his  large  confectioner^^  business, 
with  its  sixty  stores,  and  widely  scattered  agencies 
the  world  over.  In  1881  the  business  was  incor- 
porated, with  the  father,  David  Huyler,  as  presi- 
dent, and,  uj)on  his  father's  death  in  1885,  John  S. 
[79] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


Hayler   succeeded   liim   iu   the  presideucj^   of  the 
Company. 

His  call  to  Christian  service  did  not  come  to  him, 
or  at  least  was  not  recognized  by  him,  iu  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career,  but  it  came  in  time  for  him  to  put 
into  liberal  practice  the  conviction  that  became  a  part 
of  his  very  being.  On  the  closing  night  of  the  year 
1886  Mr.  Huyler  had  planned  to  meet  some  of  his 
friends  at  midnight,  to  see  the  old  year  out  and  the 
new  year  in.  The  celebration  was  to  be  not  unlike 
those  with  which  the  down-town  life  of  big  cities  is 
familiar  to-day. 

On  his  way  to  meet  his  friends  Mr.  Huyler  hap- 
pened to  think  of  a  check  he  had  received  that  very 
day.  He  had  not  even  glanced  at  the  amount.  He 
had  simply  thrust  it  into  his  pocket,  with  his  mind 
on  the  evening's  i^lau.  But  now,  under  a  gaslight 
in  the  street,  he  pulled  out  that  piece  of  paper  which 
represented  his  share  of  the  Huyler  profits  for  the 
year.  The  figures  sur^^rised  him.  They  were  very 
much  more  than  he  had  supposed ;  they  were  so 
large,  in  fact,  that  the  responsibility  for  the  use  of 
such  a  sum  flashed  upon  him  with  startling  effect. 
He  had  reached  the  real  turning  point  of  his  life. 
In  telling  of  the  occasion  he  said,  ^'  I  realized  that  I 
must  do  one  of  two  things,  either  give  up  the  care- 
less way  in  which  I  had  been  using  my  money,  or 
else  God  only  knew  what  the  result  would  be,  with 
so  much  money  at  my  disposal." 

As  he  stood  there  with  the  check  in  his  hand, 
deeply  impressed  with  the  new  view  of  his  life  that 
had  so  suddenly  come  to  him,  he  remembered  that  In 
[80] 


JOHN   S.   HUYLER 


the  small  hall  where  what  is  now  the  great  Calvary 
Methodist  Church  began  its  work,  a  watch  meeting 
was  in  progress.  Turning  resolutely  from  his  down- 
town eDgagement,  he  went  instead  to  the  watch 
meeting.  That  decision  was  fraught  with  blessing 
for  him,  and  for  the  world.  Huyler  found  his 
mother  kneeling  at  the  altar  as  he  entered,  and  with- 
out a  word  from  anyone,  he  went  forward,  and 
knelt  beside  her.  There,  in  that  watch  meetiDg,  he 
was  face  to  face  with  reality,  and  this  was  the  be- 
ginning of  new  things  in  the  life  of  this  able  and 
warm-hearted  man. 

It  was  only  a  few  months  after  this  that  he  was  in 
Paris.  One  night,  in  the  midst  of  the  gayety  of  the 
boulevards,  he  faced,  as  an  observer,  another  crisis, 
and  then  and  there  he  came  to  his  final  determina- 
tion to  turn  from  the  world's  allurements,  and  to  give 
himself  unreservedly  to  God's  service. 

That  decision  put  Mr.  Huyler' s  business  at  God's 
disposal.  It  was  a  prosperous  business.  Mr.  Huy- 
ler was  alert  and  energetic  in  his  methods,  a  money- 
maker by  natural  talent  and  by  training.  As  his 
wealth  increased,  and  his  interests  widened,  he  said 
to  his  secretary  concerning  his  gifts  to  various 
causes  :  "  Hereafter,  please  put  on  every  check,  and 
write  it  large,  'M.  P.  Account.'  The  money  I  give 
belongs  to  My  Partner  who  loved  me  and  gave  him- 
self for  me.  I  am  simply  his  agent  in  passing  it  out 
to  the  people." 

His  money  did  not  come  from  the  grudging  toil 
of  unhappy  and  slaving  workers,  but  from  cheery 
cooperation  of  employees  who  well  knew  his  friend- 

[81] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


ship  for  them.  One  of  his  saleswomen  wrote  :  ' '  He 
was  never  too  busy  to  have  a  cheery  '  Good-morning  ' 
and  a  kind  and  encouraging  word  for  the  humblest 
of  his  people.  It  was  his  custom  to  give  his  girls 
two  weeks'  vacation  with  pay  every  year,  a  turkey 
at  Thanksgiving  time,  and  at  Christmas  a  week's 
salary,  and  a  two-pound  box  of  candy.  He  offered 
to  all  membership  in  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  and  the  privilege  of  taking  music  or  any 
other  course  they  desired,  free  of  expense  to  them. ' ' 
And  one  of  his  men  has  said  :  ''  His  heart  was  al- 
ways ready  to  help.  But  back  of  all  the  money  help 
was  the  question.  Could  he  help  that  man's  soul? 
Every  now  and  then  he  would  come  around  and  say, 
'■  Well,  John,  how  is  the  family,  how  are  the  wife 
and  the  little  children  ? '  Then  the  next  question 
would  be,  ^  How  close  are  you  to  Jesus  1 '  " 

As  his  means  increased,  Mr.  Huyler  traveled 
widely.  He  would  go  into  the  Maine  woods  for  a 
vacation,  and  there  become  interested  in  the  personal 
life  of  his  wilderness  guide.  When  in  London,  he 
would  seek  out  a  missionary  working  among  the 
very  poor,  and  insist  on  sharing  his  experiences 
with  him.  It  was  not  the  scenery  or  the  sights  that 
seemed  to  have  greatest  hold  upon  him  ;  it  was  the 
people  whom  he  could  meet  and  encourage,  and 
perhaps  surprise  into  unexpected  happiness  by  his 
help.     As  one  who  knew  him  said  : 

"When  he  saw  the  multitudes,  he  had  compas- 
sion upon  them.  He  felt  as  Christ  felt.  You  have 
walked  with  him,  have  you  not  ?  on  the  stieets  of 
Paris,  or  London,  or  New  York,  keen  in  the  repartee 
[82] 


JOHN  S.  HUYLER 


of  some  gay  theme  or  serious  in  the  consideratiou  of 
some  i^lau  of  ui)liftj  aud  in  the  very  climax  of 
amusement,  in  mid-sentence  of  discussion  his  atten- 
tion would  be  drawn — where?  You  followed  the 
gaze  of  his  fine,  kind  eyes  and  found  a  limping  dog, 
a  stalled  horse,  a  beggar,  an  old  woman  of  the  street 
loud  with  the  flushed  gayety  which  tells  of  a  soiled 
life  and  a  broken  heart,  a  navvy  sweating  in  a 
trench,  a  street  vender  crying  his  wares,  a  newsboy 
trying  to  work  off  his  last  papers  for  the  night.  To 
him  the  folk  were  weary  and  worn,  as  sheep  having 
no  shepherd.  He  saw  them  blind,  lame,  halt,  starv- 
ing, broken-hearted,  as  Christ  saw  them.  This 
made  him  a  chevalier  in  benevolence,  a  knight  of 
Jesus  for  the  protection  of  the  helpless  and  the  res- 
cue of  the  unfortunate. ' ' 

Upon  one  occasion  he  said  to  Bishop  Burt,  "I 
had  so  much  fun  the  last  time  I  was  in  Turin." 
And  this  was  the  fun.  He  was  stopping  in  a 
prominent  hotel  near  the  river.  One  day  he  saw 
the  women  washing  clothes  at  the  river  edge.  To 
him  they  seemed  overworked  and  underfed.  He 
went  back  to  his  hotel,  ordered  a  large  table  set  on 
the  terrace,  explaining  that  he  wanted  to  have  some 
of  his  friends  at  dinner.  When  the  table  was  ready, 
Mr.  Huyler  himself  went  down  and  invited  the 
women  to  dine.  To  their  appearance  on  the  terrace 
the  waiter  at  the  table  strougly  objected.  The  host 
relieved  him  by  sayiug  .  "These  are  my  friends  ;  I 
will  pay  the  bill."  And  the  women  eujoyed  their 
dinner,  but  not  more  than  Mr.  Huyler  did  the  scene. 

Nowhere  was  Mr.  Huyler  more  at  home  and  more 

[83] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


loved,  outside  of  bis  owu  Lome,  than  iu  mission 
work  amoug  the  most  Ibrloru  men  the  streets  could 
furoish.  His  first  visit  to  the  famous  McAuley 
Mission  in  Water  Street,  to  which  for  years  he  de- 
voted so  much  time  and  money,  is  described  by 
John  H.  Wyburu,  the  successor  of  Samuel  H.  Had- 
ley  in  charge  of  that  work  : 

"I  was  present  the  first  night  Mr.  Huyler  ever 
came  down  to  the  Water  Street  Mission,  many  years 
ago,  and  I  shall  never  forget  it  as  loug  as  I  live. 
Dr.  Louis  Klopsch,  the  proprietor  of  The  Christian 
Herald,  had  for  a  year  been  paying  for  the  free  sup- 
pers which  for  many  years  have  been  given  to  this 
Mission,  and  Mr.  Hadley  was  telliug  the  boys  that 
that  would  be  the  last  supper  night.  Then  Mr. 
Huyler  stepped  in,  and  offered  to  take  the  place 
that  Doctor  Klopsch  had  occupied  for  a  year.  Mr. 
Hadley  then  called  upon  him  to  pray,  and,  as  you 
know,  he  was  never  much  of  a  public  speaker, 
never  said  very  much  when  he  came  down  here, 
although  his  presence  was  a  benediction  to  all  of  us. 
Lookiug  up,  he  said,  ^I  feel  that  I  need  your 
prayers  just  as  much  as  the  men  who  are  gathered 
forward  at  the  mercy  seat,'  and  added,  'I  want  you 
to  pray  for  me  now.'  It  seemed  to  me  that  Mr. 
Huyler  went  away  from  this  room  with  more  joy 
and  peace  and  gladness  in  his  heart  and  in  his  life 
than  anything  else  could  have  brought." 

Again,  another  noted  mission  worker,  John  Cal- 
lahan, tells  of  Mr.  Huyler's  generous  thoughtfulness 
for  those  in  need  :  ''I^othing  did  him  more  good 
than  to  see  the  poor  men  gathered  together,  partak- 

[84] 


JOHN   S.   HUYLER 


iug  of  that  big  corned-beef  sandwich  and  hot  cup  of 
coffee,  and  I  used  to  look  at  liini,  where  he  couldn't 
see  me,  and  I  used  to  watch  his  face  as  they  ate ; 
aud  it  just  delighted  him  to  see  them  eat,  those  five 
hundred  men  on  Saturday  nights." 

Nearly  fifty  thousand  men  each  year  were  fed  by 
this  generous  almoner  of  God's  bounty,  in  the  Had- 
ley  Eescue  Hall,  and  about  twenty  thousand  were 
given  comfortable  lodgings  by  him.  His  friends  at 
the  Mission  usually  knew  whose  voice  they  would 
hear  at  the  other  end  of  the  telephone  when  a  call 
would  come  on  a  bad  winter's  night. 

''Is  that  you.  Brother  John?"  the  voice  would 
inquire. 
•   "Yes,  sir." 

''Pretty  cold  night,  to-night,  John.  Got  many 
in  the  laall  to-night  1" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Put  every  poor  man  to  bed  to-night." 

From  a  window  in  his  comfortable  home  Mr. 
Huyler  had  looked  out  into  the  night,  saying  to 
one  who  was  near  him  : 

"This  is  a  bad  night  for  the  boys  on  the  street. 
What  will  the  poor  fellows  do  who  have  no  place 
to  sleep  to-night '^^ 

Then  the  telephone  call,  and  beds  for  perhaips  as 
many  as  two  hundred  wanderers. 

But  his  ministry  was  not  at  the  arm's  length  of 
the  telej)hone  in  remoteness  from  the  conditions  he 
tried  to  ameliorate.  He  was  often  at  the  Mission. 
He  entered  into  the  problems  and  needs  of  others, 
keenly  feeling  their  burdens.  One  who  was  in- 
[85] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


volved  in  serious  business  troubles  asked  his  coun- 
sel. Mr.  Huyler  left  bis  office,  went  to  Troy,  New 
York,  with  this  man  to  help  him  straighten  out  his 
tangle,  and  slept  with  him  in  the  same  bed  in  an 
unheated  room  during  a  cold  night.  In  that  room, 
before  retiring,  Mr.  Huyler  went  down  upon  his 
knees  in  prayer  asking  God  to  solve  the  problem. 
To  the  man's  relief  and  amazement,  the  matter  was 
settled  readily  in  conference  the  next  day. 

With  all  his  interest  in  the  bodily  welfare  of  men, 
it  is  significant  to  note  that  John  S.  Huyler  had  a 
motive  that  flowed  like  the  mid-current  of  the 
stream  through  all  his  uplift  work.  To  one  of  his 
friends  he  said  :  ^'  What  interests  me,  more  than 
material  comforts,  is  that  these  men  shall  learn 
about  Jesus  Christ.  When  they  are  hungry  they 
need  food  ;  if  they  have  no  clothing,  they  need  that 
clothing  ;  if  they  haven't  a  bed,  they  need  that  bed  ; 
but  that  is  not  what  they  really  need.  We  give 
them  that  because  that  is  a  material  necessity  ;  but 
what  they  really  need  is  to  have  those  bodies  really 
become  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  what  they  need 
is  to  have  a  new  motive,  a  new  aspiration,  a  new 
aim."  "And  that  is  why,"  said  his  friend,  "he 
liked  Water  Street  and  the  'Christian  Alliance,  and 
other  interests  dear  to  his  heart,  because  while  these 
institutions  recognized  that  the  souls  they  were  try- 
ing to  save  were  in  bodies  that  needed  attention,  it 
was  the  souls  first  of  all  that  were  their  geiiuiue 
concern,  and  this  was  also  the  first  concern  of  this 
godly  man." 

That  motive  will  lead  any  man  who  follows  it  out 
[86] 


JOHN  S.  HUYLER 


into  beneficent  excursions  in  the  field  of  hnuuiu  life 
wherever  found,  and  will  inspire  the  most  extra- 
ordinary activity  in  service.  Men  could  not  under- 
stand how  Mr.  Huyler  could  find  time  for  all  that 
he  did.  He  was  either  president,  vice  president, 
director  or  trustee  of  no  less  than  seventeen  chari- 
table or  educational  institutions,  a  member  in  nearly 
fifty  societies,  and  a  member  of  eighteen  clubs — all 
outside  of  his  business  interests.  And  night  after 
night  would  find  him  engaged  in  mission  work, 
while  his  secretary  says  that  in  a  single  year  seven- 
teen thousand  persons  passed  his  desk  to  ask  Mr. 
Huyler  for  aid  of  some  kind.  It  is  known,  too, 
that  in  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  Mr.  Huyler  gave 
away  an  average  of  a  thousand  dollars  a  day  to  the 
multitude  of  objects  that  claimed  his  interest.  The 
index  of  his  benevolence  ledger  might  be  taken  al- 
most as  a  directory  of  the  principal  charities  known 
to  givers  of  his  day,  and  more  than  that,  for  it  con- 
tains very  many  names  of  pensioners  and  others 
quite  unknown  to  the  world. 

Mr.  Huyler's  heart  seemed  to  be  set  upon  improv- 
ing everything  he  touched.  He  would  observe  the 
crude  product  in  any  form  and  then  study  to  make 
it  over  into  perfection  in  its  sphere.  So  character- 
istic was  this  habit  of  mind  that  he  applied  it  to 
himself  just  as  much  as  to  anyone  else,  in  his  own 
growth  in  efficiency.  He  had  one  novel  method  for 
doing  this,  wiiich  explains  the  numerous  long  mirrors 
in  his  offices.  In  his  interviews  with  others  he  would 
sit  where  he  could  see  his  visitor  and  himself  in  a 
mirror,  and  he  would  study  closely,  in  this  objective 
[87] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


way,  the  impression  his  words  were  making,  his 
bearing  as  he  talked,  and  his  visitor's  response  in 
outward  signs.  He  did  this  not  to  enjoy  the  scene, 
but  to  perfect  himself  in  the  iSne  points  of  mastery 
and  effectiveness  in  conversation. 

So  educative  had  he  found  this  method  that  he 
tried  it  on  a  visitor  one  day  for  quite  another  pur- 
pose. An  old  acquaintance,  who  had  been  drinking, 
and  showed  it,  called  to  see  him.  There  were  others 
in  the  office  when  the  man  was  admitted  to  see  Mr. 
Huyler.  But  that  made  no  difference  to  this  very 
practical  philanthropist.  He  greeted  the  man  cor- 
dially, and  asked  him  to  be  seated. 

^^Now,"  cried  Mr.  Huyler,  '^just  look  at  your- 
self!" To  the  man's  dismay  he  was  face  to  face 
with  himself  in  a  big  mirror.  "What  do  you  think 
of  yourself?  What  sort  of  condition  is  that  for  a 
man  to  be  in  ?  " 

The  visitor  took  a  good  look,  and  then  broke 
down  completely. 

This  man  of  many  affairs  gave  himself  without 
stint  to  improve  the  human  product  all  around  him. 
When  he  would  leave  his  busy  office  for  home  he 
would  walk  a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  way,  and 
needy  men  lay  in  wait  for  him,  knowing  his  habits. 
He  did  not  dodge,  he  did  not  change  his  habits. 
He  would  walk  and  talk  with  these  men,  sometimes 
giving  them  tickets  good  at  the  Water  Street  Mis- 
sion, sometimes  money,  and,  perhaps  best  of  all, 
sound  counsel  that  would  lead  them  out  of  their  dis- 
tresses. Sometimes  he  would  stop  at  a  store  window, 
just  to  lead  some  poor  fellow  to  speak  to  him,  and 
[88] 


JOHN  S.  HUYLER 


then,  haudiiig  bim  money,  he  would  say  in  his 
kindly  way,  ''  That's  God's  money  ;  will  you  use  it 
carefully  1  "  Men  sometimes  refused  to  receive  the 
money  on  those  terms. 

It  was  so  at  the  beginning  of  his  day  as  well  as  at 
the  ending.  When  he  would  leave  his  home,  to 
walk  to  his  office,  he  would  soon  be  joined  by  some 
one  who  needed  help.  And  all  day  long  men  would 
be  calling  at  his  house  for  Water  Street  tickets  good 
for  a  meal  or  a  bed.  Some  in  the  family  thought  it 
would  be  better  to  have  a  regular  hour  for  ticket  dis- 
tribution there,  so  the  hour  of  five  to  six  in  the  after- 
noon was  set.  Within  a  few  days,  it  was  found  that 
about  seventy-five  men  would  gather  at  that  time,  a 
crowd  quiet  and  orderly  indeed,  but  not  so  readily 
helped  as  on  the  all -day  plan,  to  which  a  return  was 
speedily  made. 

When  Mr.  Huyler  died  at  his  summer  home  at 
Eye,  XewYork,  on  October  1,  1910,  he  had  given 
far  more  than  money  to  the  needy  and  the  sinning 
and  the  downtrodden.  He  had  added  one  more  to 
that  list  of  able  and  highly  successful  men  of  busi- 
ness whose  radiant  spiritual  life  and  unstinted  serv- 
ice for  others  utterly  confutes  the  pessimist  who  holds 
that  business  and  religion  do  not  mix.  They  do. 
And  the  combination  is  one  well  worth  learning. 


[89] 


VII 

David  D.  Wood 

The  Blind  Mtisician 
and  Teacher 


His  full  biography  has  never  been  written y  but 
his  life  is  written  in  his  music,  and  in  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  blind  and  the  seei?ig  whom  he  trained. 


YII 
DAVID  a  WOOD 

On  an  October  day  in  the  year  1843,  a  canal  boat 
drew  away  from  its  moorings  in  Pittsburgh,  Penn- 
sylvania. On  the  deck  a  five-year-old  boy  was  cry- 
ing bitterly.  His  mother  stood  on  the  bank  bravely 
bidding  him  good-by,  but  he  could  not  see  her. 
He  could  only  stretch  out  his  pleading  hands  to  her, 
for  David  Wood  had  been  blind  since  he  was  two- 
and-a-half  years  old,  and  the  thought  of  his  journey 
away  to  school,  in  far-off  Philadelphia,  seemed  more 
than  he  could  bear. 

When  he  reached  the  school.  The  Pennsylvania 
Institute  for  the  Blind,  he  was  more  lonely  than 
those  of  us  who  have  sight  could  iDOssibly  be.  More 
than  fifty  years  later,  when  the  institution  was  about 
to  move  into  new  quarters  in  Overbrook,  he  visited 
the  room  in  which  he  slept  on  that  first  night. 
"  The  same  old  Venetian  window  blinds,"  he  wrote, 
"the  tassels  of  which  I  reached  out  of  bed  and 
played  with,  were  still  there.  How  dismal  that  first 
night  was  !  Fancy  a  poor,  dejected  boy,  far  from 
all  that  was  dearest  to  him  on  earth,  with  no  voices 
save  those  of  strangers,  and  no  sounds  of  any  kind 
that  were  at  all  familiar,  lying  awake  and  count- 
ing the  hours  as  the  watchman  called  them  out 
[93] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


in  his  melancholy  tone.  Was  it  any  wonder  I  lay 
there  and  cried  until  I  thought  my  heart  would 
break  ?  " 

While  he  was  still  a  small  boy,  he  was  given 
various  musical  instruments  to  try,  and  in  the  school 
orchestra  he  played  upon  the  flute.  He  began  to 
play  the  organ  when  he  was  twelve,  but  he  took  up 
the  serious  study  of  it  at  fourteen.  At  fifteen,  he 
was  an  assistant  teacher  of  music  in  the  school ;  be- 
fore he  reached  the  advanced  age  of  eighteen,  he 
had  won  a  prize  for  musical  composition,  and  he 
was  not  yet  nineteen  when  he  went  out  from  the 
school  to  take  his  part  in  the  world  of  music. 
James  G.  Blaine,  who  was  chief  teacher  in  the 
school  from  1852  to  1856,  is  said  to  have  remarked 
to  George  W.  Childs,  then  owner  of  the  Public 
Ledger  :  ''  If  David  Wood,  the  famous oi'ganist,  had 
turned  his  attention  to  science,  he  would  have  been 
the  greatest  mathematician  of  the  age.  However, 
there  is  compensation  in  the  thought  that  what 
science  lost,  music  gained."  And  in  this  many  a 
student  would  agree  with  Mr.  Blaine,  because  of 
the  world  of  interest  and  service  opened  out  to  him 
by  this  rare  teacher. 

What  obstacles  David  Wood  had  to  overcome, 
only  the  blind  can  know.  In  strong  Christian 
faith,  aud  with  buoyant  courage  he  reached  out  into 
the  difficult  field  of  his  life  work.  Some  of  his 
early  struggles  for  a  livelihood  showed  the  stuff  of 
which  he  was  made.  One  of  his  pupils  writes : 
"So  ambitious  was  he  to  become  established 
in  his  i)rofession  that  he  hesitated  to  undertake 
[94] 


DAVID  D.   WOOD 


nothiug  in  the  line  of  teacliiug.  Upon  one  oc- 
casion, a  young  lady  applied  to  him  for  lessons 
on  the  accordion.  Now  the  art  of  drawing  forth 
sweet  strains  from  that  melodious  instrument  was 
not  one  of  Mr.  Wood's  accomplishments,  but  he 
agreed  to  give  the  lessons  desired,— tactfully  borrow- 
ing the  book  of  instructions  from  his  prospective 
pupil.  In  the  interim  between  the  day  of  making 
the  arrangements  and  that  of  the  first  lesson,  he  had 
mastered  the  art  of  accordion-playing,  which  he 
transmitted  to  his  pupil  through  a  j^rolonged  course 
of  study." 

He  became  the  director  and  chief  instructor  of 
music  in  the  school  for  the  blind  in  1887,  and  con- 
tinued in  that  work  until  the  day  of  his  death,  in 
1910.  His  teaching  work  was  so  extensive  within 
and  without  the  school  that  probably  three  fourths 
of  the  organists  in  Philadelphia  are  either  pupils 
of  his,  or  of  those  whom  he  taught.  He  was  the 
teacher  of  the  organ  for  many  years  in  The  Phila- 
delphia Musical  Academy,  where  many  of  the  best 
organists  were  educated.  Seven  years  after  leaving 
the  school  as  a  pupil,  he  became  the  organist  of  St. 
Stephen's  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  a  position 
that  he  occupied  to  the  close  of  his  life. 

David  Wood's  real  preeminence  among  men  did 
not  go  unrecognized.  His  native  city,  Pittsburgh, 
in  making  up  a  list  of  her  first  thirty  citizens  and 
sons,  included  him  among  the  number  with  such 
men  as  Brashear,  the  astronomer  ;  Andrew  Carnegie, 
the  philanthropist ;  Piddle,  the  theologian,  and 
Westinghouse,  the  inventor. 
[95] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


When  I  first  heard  David  Wood  pla}^,  it  was  not 
merely  that  I  heard  the  wonderful  music  he  produced 
from  the  organ  ;  my  recollection  of  that  first  experi- 
ence of  his  music  included  very  vividly  the  fact  that 
I  saw  him  play.  Not  that  he  indulged  in  violent 
motions  or  emphatic  leaps  and  starts,  such  as  some 
organists  are  wont  to  use.  On  the  contrary,  he 
seemed  more  like  one  who  was  listening  to  the  play- 
ing of  some  hidden  spirit  within  the  organ.  There 
he  sat  on  the  organ  bench  beyond  and  above  the 
terraced  choir  of  a  hundred  voices  at  the  great 
Temple  Baptist  Church  in  Philadelphia,  where  he 
played  in  the  Sunday  evening  services, — a  solitary, 
quiet  figure,  bending  close  to  the  manuals  with  head 
slightly  inclined,  as  when  one  listens  intently  ;  and 
up  from  the  touch  of  his  fingers  came  that  glory  of 
rising  and  falling  cadences  which  he  brought  forth 
with  the  refinement  of  a  loving  purpose  and  con- 
summate art. 

One  quite  forgot  that  he  was  blind.  The  sight  of 
the  eyes  might  have  been  at  its  highest  power  in  the 
master  personality  bending  over  the  organ  manual, 
if  the  hearer  were  to  judge  by  the  accuracy  of  touch, 
the  instant  combining  of  stops,  and  the  reading  of 
difficult  scores.  There  was  no  written  music,  in- 
deed, before  him,  but  one  wondered  then — and  the 
more  one  knew  him  the  more  the  marvel  grew — 
that  the  tablets  of  memory  could  retain  so  much 
material  in  endless  variety  of  theme  and  form. 
But  that  memory  had  been  rigidly  trained  and 
knew  how  to  carry  burdens.  In  the  days  when 
Mr.  Wood   could  not  afford  to  employ  anyone  to 

[96] 


DAVID  D.   WOOD 


read  music  tx)  him,  he  had  to  depend  upon  his 
friends  for  this.  He  learned  to  memorize  without 
an  instrument.  He  would  sit  in  the  drug  store  of  a 
friend,  and  listen  with  the  intentness  and  concen- 
tration of  the  blind,  as  the  druggist,  in  the  intervals 
of  trade,  would  read  the  notes  of  the  printed  score 
to  him.  A  pupil  of  his  later  life  says  that  one  day 
Doctor  Wood  asked  him  to  listen  while  he  played 
over  a  certain  anthem.  "  I  haven't  played  this  for 
years,"  said  Doctor  Wood.  '^Iwant  to  use  it  to- 
morrow with  my  choir.  Will  you  follow  the  music 
as  I  play  it  over,  and  let  me  know  where  I  make 
any  mistake !  "  But  there  was  no  mistake.  The 
blind  organist  played  it  as  if  from  the  score  itself. 
Indeed,  there  seemed  something  almost  magical 
about  the  sensitiveness  of  his  hearing,  as  well  as  in 
its  registering  on  the  memory.  He  could  hear  so 
delicately  that  he  would  often  stop  his  pupils  as  they 
played  their  lessons  over,  and  correct  their  finger- 
ing ! 

It  was  hard  to  realize  that  he  could  not  see,  for 
there  was  nothing  at  the  organ  which  he  could  not 
do.  But  one  was  soon  assured  upon  hearing  him 
play  that  only  the  seeing  organist  of  rarest  heart 
and  culture  and  genius  could  approach  the  depth  of 
understanding,  the  purity  of  technical  skill,  and 
the  poetic  breadth  of  spiritual  vision  that  David 
Wood  revealed.  "His  touch  has  a  sympathy  and 
pathos  all  its  own,"  wrote  Dr.  S.  D.  McConnell,  a 
rector  of  St.  Stephen's.  "  It  has  been  purchased  at 
a  great  price.  God  and  himself  alone  know  the 
cost.     It   would  seem  that  no  lower  price  would 

[97] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


serve.  God  does  not  act  blindly  even  when  be  im- 
poses blindness.  He  secures  liis  ends  by  the  most 
direct  means.  The  love  and  admiration  which  we 
give  to  our  dear  friend  and  Maestro  could  probably 
have  been  won  for  him  at  no  less  a  cost.  Probably 
no  congregation  in  America  has  been  blessed  with 
music  which  in  form  and  quality  and  precision,  and, 
above  all,  in  reverence  and  devotion,  leaves  so  little 
to  be  desired.  '^ 

"I  have  always  regarded  Mr.  Wood  as  one  of 
the  real  inspirations  of  my  life  and  ministry," 
wrote  Dr.  Ell  wood  Worcester,  also  a  rector  of  St. 
Stephen's.  ^'His  music  to  me  was  different  from 
that  of  any  other  organist.  There  was  a  quality  in 
everything  Mr.  Wood  played  which  makes  other 
organ-playiug  seem  almost  coarse,  an  element  of 
thought,  depth,  intellectuality,  purity  which  very 
few  organists,  I  imagine,  have  ever  attained.  The 
communion  service  in  my  mind  is  always  associated 
with  Mr.  Wood  and  his  wonderful  improvisations, 
which  were  so  unobtrusive  and  so  haunting  that  one 
can  never  forget  them." 

After  all,  was  not  the  veil  that  closed  his  physical 
eyes  to  things  of  the  material  world  about  him  the 
barrier  that  turned  his  whole  being  into  seeing, 
with  other  eyes,  the  things  that  are  hidden  from  us? 

It  was  wonderful  to  see  him  leading  a  large  chorus 
of  blind  singers  from  the  school.  Let  the  reader 
thiuk  of  the  most  difficult  oratorio,  the  most  glori- 
ous, he  ever  heard.  And  who  are  singing  on  that 
platform  before  a  great  audience  of  musicians  and 
music-lovers,  with  an  orchestra,  or  without  it? 
[98] 


DAVID  D.   WOOD 


Bliud  boys  aud  girls,  erect,  atteDtive,  alive  to  every 
hint  from  the  leader.  By  what  chauoels,  unused  by 
those  of  us  who  see,  can  that  conipauy  of  trained 
singers  have  gained  the  training  they  have  so  evi- 
dently received  !  One  listens  in  vain  to  discover  a 
halting  voice,  a  note  just  a  fraction  of  a  beat  behind 
the  others,  a  break  somewhere  in  that  orderly  glory 
of  song.  But  the  listener  ceases  to  be  a  critic.  He 
simply  listens  in  amazement  and  joy.  That  was 
the  work  of  David  Wood  ;  to  go  into  the  dark — a 
dark  that  would  not  end  on  this  earth  for  him,  or 
for  any  of  those  singers — and  there,  in  the  gloom, 
to  say  to  those  young  people  : 

"  You  and  I  are  to  see  what  our  brothers  and  sis- 
ters with  sight  may  not  see.  Here  we  shall  look 
without  distraction  into  the  soul  of  Mendelssohn 
and  Mozart  and  Bach  and  Handel,  and  shall  learn 
in  time  to  give  forth  from  that  intimacy  the  music 
which  they  intended  the  world  should  possess." 

These  pupils  of  his  were  far  more  to  him  than 
just  so  many  more  or  less  trying  novices  who  had 
to  be  dragooned  into  shape.  They  were  real  folks 
with  souls,  and  whether  they  were  blind  or  seeing, 
Mr.  Wood  meant  that  they  should  see  more  of  the 
soul  of  things  than  of  the  mere  surface.  Says  one 
student:  ''Some  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  were 
learned  from  Mr.  Wood  in  the  short  talks  after  a 
music  lesson.  At  such  times  he  would  discourse  on 
many  and  varied  themes.  From  his  inexhaustible 
store  of  information  he  scattered  the  seeds  of  knowl- 
edge into  the  eager  minds  of  his  pupils."  Another 
who  knew  him  well  says  :    ''Those  who  were  his 

[99] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


I)upils  thiuk  of  him  uow  more  than  ever  as  the  mas- 
ter, because  of  the  depth  and  beauty  of  his  char- 
acter. It  was  a  commou  sight  to  see  him  between 
lesson  periods  with  a  pupil  on  each  arm,  walking 
and  talking  in  the  corridors. 

''Once,  when  a  brilliant  piano  pupil  of  his  lost 
her  right  arm  in  a  railroad  accident  in  the  very 
3^ear  of  graduation,  he  yet  brought  her  through  the 
recital  ordeal,  having  found  or  written  for  her  music 
for  the  left  hand  only.  I  am  sure  she  feels  that  no 
other  master  could  have  so  given  her  the  courage  to 
persevere.  Like  many  another  of  his  blind  pupils 
she  has  since  made  a  pronounced  success  as  a 
teacher." 

This  breadth  of  knowledge  and  keenness  of  in- 
terest in  the  persons  under  his  tutelage  was  shown 
also  in  his  letters  and  other  writings  on  varied 
themes.  He  thought  deeply,  and  wrote  freely  on 
many  subjects  in  which  he  seemed  as  much  at  home 
as  any  man  of  intellectual  power  who  could  browse 
when  and  where  he  pleased  among  books,  and 
mingle  with  men  of  affairs.  Some  of  his  cherished 
ideals  that  help  to  explain  the  course  of  his  own 
life  are  disclosed  in  this  passage  from  an  essay  of 
his  on  ".Method,'^  and  they  are  suggestive  as  com- 
ing from  a  man  who  all  unconsciously  embodied 
them  in  his  remarkable  service  to  others  : 

"The  successful  merchants,  the  eminent  profes- 
sional men,  the  great  generals,  the  astute  statesmen, 
the  profound  scholars,  the  men  distinguished  for 
piety,  men  whose  examples  we  Avould  follow  and 
whose  virtues  we  would  strive  to  emulate,  are  those 
[100] 


DAVID  D,   WOOD 


who  have  risen  to  emineuce  by  iisiug  every  legiti- 
mate meaijs  iu  their  power  to  elevate  and  enuoble 
humanity,  rather  than  by  speculatiug  on  its  weak- 
nesses. Men,  not  of  ideas  only,  but  men  of  action  : 
and  their  deeds  live  on — the  very  embodiment  of 
true  wisdom  and  noble  philanthropy. 

'^  The  poets,  painters,  musicians,  sculptors,  artists 
of  every  description,  whose  names  stand  first  on  the 
roll  of  fame,  are  those  who  have  labored  most  con- 
sistently ;  and  their  works  remain  to  us  not  only  as 
monuments  of  exquisite  taste  and  beauty,  but  also 
as  models  of  purity  and  sound  method. 

"  In  estimating  the  true  value  of  any  work  of 
genius,  we  too  often  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  any 
method  whatever  was  required  in  its  development ; 
and  we  are  apt  to  regard  its  production  simply  as  a 
matter  of  spontaneous  growth — so  easy  it  seems  for 
a  great  man  to  do  a  great  thing.  Nor  do  we  rightly 
consider  the  enormous  price  that  genius  is  frequently 
compelled  to  pay  for  its  victories.  What  restless 
strivings  !  What  mental  exhaustion  !  What  pro- 
digious loss  of  nervous  force  !  We,  who  never  get 
beyond  the  outer  court  of  the  temple,  can  know  but 
little  of  the  sacrifice  that  is  laid  upon  the  altar. 

'•Whatever  we  do  best  in  this  world,  we  do  it 
practically  first,  and  theoretically  afterwards.  We 
lisp  our  prayers  at  our  mother's  knee,  and  prattle 
forth  our  childish  glee,  long  before  we  have  any 
knowledge  of  the  rules  which  govern  our  speech. 
If  we  wish  to  succeed  as  artisans,  we  must  go  to  the 
workshop  rather  than  the  schoolroom.  Is  it  our 
ambition  to  become  rulers  of  men  ?  A  just  and 
[101] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


right  judge  learus  to  obey  the  hiws  of  his  couutry 
before  attemptiug  to  disi^euse  them.  Do  we  desire 
to  grow  in  every  Christian  grace  and  virtue  1  Then 
let  us  engage  in  some  definite  Christian  work.  '  If 
any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doc- 
trine.^ This  is  the  Master's  injunction — it  is  an 
eternal  truth.  ^  If  ye  do,  ye  shall  know, '  is  the  law 
that  obtains  everywhere  and  always.  It  is  the  law 
of  the  spiritual  world  working  itself  downward  into 
the  natural  :  moving  along  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance, and  finding  a  ready  lodgment  in  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  those  who  will  accept  it  and  be  con- 
trolled by  it.  It  is  a  fragment  of  the  angels'  song 
'Peace  on  earth.'  It  is  the  star  leading  all  wise 
men,  first  to  Bethlehem's  manger,  then  forward  to 
the  golden  gates  of  that  blest  city  where  Bethle- 
hem's Babe  is  the  everlasting  king." 

It  was  on  Easter  Sunday  in  the  year  1910  that 
David  Wood  passed  into  the  new  day,  while  his 
choir  in  St.  Stephen's  was  singing  the  "Gloria  in 
Excelsis."  He  had  made  great  preparations,  as 
usual,  for  his  Easter  music,  but  another  was  now  at 
the  organ. 

One  who  sang  in  that  choir  says  that  when  David 
Wood  was  a  little  boy,  bewildered  by  the  continued 
darkness  in  which  he  found  himself,  he  used  to 
plead  with  his  mother  for  freedom  from  that  dark- 
ness. ' '  Take  me  out  into  the  light  !  Take  me  out 
into  the  light ! "  he  would  cry,  unable  to  under- 
stand that  he  was  not  to  see  the  light  again  with  his 
mortal  eyes.  But  surely  on  that  Easter  Day  David 
Wood  stood  at  last  in  a  flood  of  light. 

[102] 


DAVID  D.   WOOD 


How  many  there  are  who  have  cause  for  grati- 
tude to  this  brave  aud  inspiring  personality,  whose 
call  to  service  was  answered  by  faith-filled  overcom- 
ing of  such  obstacles  as  few  men  ever  know  ! 


[103] 


VIII 

William  E.  Dodge 

Master  of  Big  Business 
and  Philanthropy 


The  full  story  of  this  amaxuigly  active  life  is 
fou7id  in  "  Memorials  of  William  E.  Dodge  y"*  com- 
piled and  edited  by  his  son,  D.  Stuart  Dodge,  and 
in     Carlos    Martyji's    "  William    E.    Dodge,    the 
Christian  Merchant.'' 


Yin 

WILLIAM  E-  DODGE 

An  overflowing  life  like  that  of  William  Earl 
Dodge  is  nothing  short  of  marvelous  in  its  steady 
output  of  energy  and  its  long-sustained  intensity  in 
many  spheres  of  usefulness.  He  was  a  pioneer  in 
American  big  business  ;  a  philanthropist  with  a  be- 
w  ildering  variety  of  interests  ;  a  political  force  in 
his  neighborhood  and  in  the  nation  ;  a  power  in  the 
religious  life  of  his  time  5  an  accessible,  humane  and 
unspoiled  helper  of  his  fellow  man  wherever  he 
could  give  of  his  bounty  in  money,  or  counsel,  or 
encouragement. 

He  was  born  in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  September 
4,  1805.  His  father  was  the  owner  of  two  dry- 
goods  stores,  and  when  William  was  yet  a  child 
the  father  opened  a  branch  house  in  Xew  York,  in 
partnership  with  S.  and  H.  Higginson  of  Boston. 

The  boy  was  trained  in  a  business  atmosphere 
from  the  beginning.  His  mother  gave  him  his  first 
schooling,  but  otherwise  his  school  life  was  much 
broken  ;  and  when  he  was  thirteen,  he  was  taken 
into  a  wholesale  dry-goods  house  by  the  Merrit 
Brothers  in  New  York  as  a  clerk.  He  did  well 
there,  but  his  father  took  charge  of  a  cotton  mill  at 
Bozrahville,    Connecticut,  and  William   secured  a 

[107] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


position  in  the  country  store  connected  with  the 
factory. 

He  was  so  attentive  to  customers'  wants,  so 
cheery  and  agreeable,  that  he  made  many  friends 
for  the  store.  His  father  was  pleased.  He  en- 
couraged him  by  setting  apart  a  show  case  at  one 
end  of  the  store  for  him,  which  he  was  allowed  to 
stock  to  suit  himself.  The  profits  were  to  be  the 
boy's  own.  Thus  William  E.  Dodge  began  the 
foundations  of  a  great  fortune  and  a  distinguished 
career. 

One  day,  while  he  was  loading  a  wagon  outside 
the  store,  he  was  obliged  to  stop  for  a  moment  to 
attend  to  something  in  the  store  itself.  The  clerk 
who  took  his  place  at  the  wagon  had  hardly  begun 
his  work  when  he  was  struck  senseless  by  a  falling 
pulley,  and  died  in  a  few  days.  This  occurrence  im- 
pressed William  tremendously.  Had  God  spared 
him  for  a  special  work  in  the  world  ?  That  was  the 
question  he  asked  of  himself. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  in  Hartford  he 
came  under  the  preaching  of  Nettleton,  the  evan- 
gelist. As  he  was  returning  to  his  home,  Doctor 
Hawes  of  the  old  Center  Church  said  to  him  : 

''  What,  William  !  Going  home,  and  taking  that 
hard  heart  with  you  ?  " 

That  straight  thrust  reached  the  young  man.  On 
Sunday  eveniug,  June  8,  1821,  he  rose  to  request 
prayer  in  a  prayer  meeting  in  Bozrahville,  and  on 
the  first  Sunday  in  May,  1822,  he  united  with  the 
Church. 

In  1825  the  family  removed  to  JS^ew  York,  and 

[108] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


the  boy  entered  a  store.  Mr.  Dodge  later  said  of 
his  work  : 

"  It  was  a  very  different  thing  in  those  days  to 
be  a  boy  in  a  store  from  what  it  is  now.  I  fear  that 
many  young  men,  anxious  to  get  started,  would 
hesitate  long  before  facing  such  duties  as  had  then 
to  be  performed. 

"  I  had  to  go  every  morning  to  Yandewater  Street 
for  the  keys,  as  my  employers  must  have  them  in 
case  of  fire  in  the  night.  There  was  much  ambition 
among  the  young  men  as  to  who  should  have  his 
store  opened  first,  and  I  used  to  be  up  soon  after 
light,  walk  to  Yandewater  Street,  and  then  to  the 
store  very  early.  It  was  to  be  sprinkled  with 
water,  which  I  brought  the  evening  before  from  the 
old  pump  at  the  corner  of  Peck  Slip  and  Pearl 
Street,  then  carefully  swept  and  dusted.  Then 
came  sprinkling  the  sidewalk  and  street,  and 
sweeping  to  the  center  a  heap  for  the  dirt  cart  to 
remove.  This  done,  one  of  the  older  clerks  would 
come,  and  I  would  be  permitted  to  go  home  for 
breakfast.  In  winter  the  wood  was  to  be  carried 
and  piled  in  the  cellar,  fires  were  to  be  made,  and 
lamps  trimmed.  I  mention  these  particulars  to 
show  that  junior  clerks  in  those  days  did  the  work 
now  done  by  the  porters. ' ' 

Of  the  New  York  of  his  daj^  he  wrote  thus  : 

' '  Over  the  stores  in  Pearl  Street  were  a  large 
number  of  boarding  houses  expressly  for  country 
merchants  ;  here  they  would  remain  a  week  or  ten 
days,  picking  up  a  variety  of  goods,  for  most  of 
them  kept  what  were  then  called  countiy  stores. 
[109] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


They  had  to  purchase  dry-goods,  groceries,  hard- 
ware, medicines,  crockery,  etc.  It  was  a  great  ob- 
ject with  the  jobbers  to  have  one  of  their  salesmen 
board  at  a  large  house  for  country  merchants,  so 
that  they  could  induce  them  to  come  to  their  stores 
to  trade.  Most  of  the  goods  were  shipped  by  sloops, 
bound  up  the  North  Eiver  or  the  Sound  ;  those  for 
the  South,  on  schooners  and  brigs  to  ports  whence 
they  were  taken  into  the  interior. 

"  Think  of  New  York  without  gas  !  At  that  time 
the  street  lamps  were  few  and  far  between,  often 
filled  with  poor  oil  and  badly  trimmed.  They 
looked  on  a  dark  night  like  so  many  lightning 
bugs,  and  in  winter  often  went  entirely  out  before 
morning.  In  1825  the  first  gaslights  were  intro- 
duced by  the  New  York  Gas  Company,  which  had 
contracted  to  light  below  Canal  Street. 

"There  were  no  police  in  those  days,  but  there 
were  a  few  watchmen,  who  came  on  soon  after  dark 
and  patrolled  the  streets  till  near  daylight.  Their 
rounds  were  so  arranged  that  they  made  one  each 
hour,  and  as  the  clocks  struck  they  pounded  with 
their  clubs  three  times  on  the  curb,  calling  out,  for 
example,  ^Twelve  o'clock,  and  all  is  well,^  in  a 
very  peculiar  voice.  They  wore  leathern  caps, 
such  as  the  firemen  now  use. 

"Although  the  Sabbath  was  almost  free  from 
disturbances  from  carriages,  still,  for  fear  that  some 
one  might  be  passing  during  worship,  the  churches 
had  chains  drawn  across  the  streets  on  either  side, 
which  were  put  up  as  soon  as  service  commenced, 
and  taken  down  at  its  close.  What  would  our  rid- 
[110] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


iiig,  sporting,  Sabbath- breaking  citizens  say  to  such 
obstructions,  if  put  up  on  Fifth  or  Madison  Ave- 
nues now  1 " 

Mr.  Dodge  went  into  business  for  himself  in  May, 
1827,  in  a  store  on  Pearl  Street  near  his  father's. 
And  this  was  the  way  of  it  as  told  by  himself  : 

"  A  retired  Connecticut  merchant,  with  whom  I 
had  done  business  most  of  the  time  while  a  clerk, 
had  a  son  j  ust  graduated  from  Yale,  whom  he  was 
anxious  to  place  in  New  York,  and  having  heard 
that  I  was  intending  to  commence  business  for  my- 
self, proposed  a  copartnership  with  his  sou.  He 
offered  to  furnish  an  amount  of  capital  which,  with 
the  small  sum  I  had  (mostly  savings  from  my 
salary),  would  make,  for  those  days,  a  respectable 
beginning,  and  furthermore,  promised  to  indorse 
for  us  to  a  reasonable  amount.  There  are  few 
events  in  a  man's  life  more  important  than  that 
which  introduces  him  into  active  business  on  his 
own  account,  and  as  my  partner  had  no  experience, 
I  felt  the  responsibility  the  more.  Here  I  will  ven- 
ture to  relate  an  incident,  as  I  think  it  may  be  of 
service  to  some  of  my  young  friends  who  are  look- 
ing forward  to  mercantile  life.  A  few  weeks  after 
we  started,  and  when  our  stock  of  goods  was  small, 
three  young  men  stepped  into  the  store,  each  hav- 
ing a  large  tin  trunk  which  he  carried  in  his  hands, 
aided  by  a  large  strap  over  his  shoulders.  I  saw 
at  once  that  they  were  Connecticut  peddlers,  for  I 
had  often  dealt  with  such  when  a  clerk.  They 
were  attracted  by  some  article  in  the  window. 
After  giving  them  its  price,  and  while  they  set 
[111] 


THEIR  CALL  TO   SERVICE 


down   their  loads  to  rest  and  talk,  I  said  pleas- 
antly : 

'' '  I  see  you  are,  like  myself,' just  starting  in  busi- 
ness. Now  let  me  make  you  a  proposition.  There 
is  plenty  of  room  in  our  store.  Each  of  you  take 
one  of  these  pigeonholes  under  the  shelves,  put 
your  trunks  there  in  place  of  carrying  them  around 
while  you  are  picking  up  your  goods,  and  just  order 
all  you  buy  to  be  sent  here.  We  will  take  charge 
of  your  purchases,  pack  and  ship  them,  and  you  can 
come  here  and  examine  your  bills,  write  letters,  and 
do  as  you  like,  whether  you  buy  a  dollar's  worth  of 
us  or  not.  I  want  to  make  at  least  a  show  of  doing 
business,  and  it  will  really  be  an  advantage  to  us  as 
well  as  a  convenience  to  you. '  They  were  pleased 
with  the  offer,  accepted  it  at  once,  and  left  in  search 
of  such  things  as  they  wanted.  My  young  partner 
waited  till  they  got  out,  and  then,  with  consider- 
able excitement  and  wounded  pride,  said  :  '  Well, 
are  those  what  you  call  customers  f '  I  said  :  '  Yes  j 
you  know  that  tall  oaks  from  little  acorns  grow. 
We  shall  see  by  and  by  what  they  will  make.' 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  for  the  six  years  I  remained 
in  the  dry-goods  business,  they  were  among  my 
most  attached  customers.  They  were  all  respectable 
young  men,  not  afraid  of  work,  nor  ashamed  of 
small  beginnings.  One  has  been  president  of  a  New 
England  bank  for  more  than  twenty  years.  His 
brother,  years  afterwards,  moved  to  one  of  the  large 
towns  of  Ohio,  went  into  business,  and  has  grown 
to  be  the  man  of  the  place,  associated  with  the  lail- 
roads  and  public  improvements  of  the  state.     The 

[  112  ] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


other,  who  was  from  a  manufacturiDg  town  in  Con- 
necticut, has  long  been  connected  with  the  large 
mills  of  the  place,  a  man  unusually  respected." 

Mr.  Dodge  began  in  these  years  to  do  much  for 
the  church  and  the  Sunday  school,  perceiving  in  the 
Sunday  school  an  agency  of  untold  possibilities,  rep- 
resented then  in  'New  York  by  only  two  or  three 
examples.  He  did  not  count  himself  too  busy  to 
give  time  to  the  meeting  of  recognized  needs  j  so,  for 
the  young  men,  he  helx^ed  to  found  the  ^ '  New  York 
Young  Men's  Bible  Society "  whose  members 
worked  among  the  sick  and  destitute. 

On  June  24,  1828,  Mr.  Dodge  married  Melissa 
Phelps,  a  daughter  of  Anson  G.  Phelps,  and  in  1833 
he  sold  out  his  dry-goods  business,  and  entered  into 
partnership  with  his  father-in-law,  and  Daniel 
James,  under  the  title  of  Phelps,  Dodge  &  Co.,  a 
large  metal-importing  house.  Here  was  a  business 
opportunity  that  he  was  not  slow  to  appreciate  and 
develop. 

Even  while  Mr.  Dodge  was  a  dry-goods  merchant, 
he  had  his  eyes  open  for  the  business  opportunities 
offered  by  an  expanding  national  life.  He  bought 
timber  lauds  in  Pennsylvania  so  extensively  that  he 
"became  the  pait  proprietor  of  whole  counties." 
He  made  other  purchases  in  Michigan,  Wisconsin 
and  Texas.  His  son,  D.  Stuart  Dodge,  writes : 
"  Probably  few  men,  even  among  those  exclusively 
engaged  in  the  lumber  trade,  were  more  widely  and 
practically  familiar  with  the  varied  features  of  this 
great  industry.  Mr.  Dodge  took  an  intelligent  and 
enthusiastic  interest  in  every  detail,  from  the  first 
[113] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


selection  of  suitable  lands,  the  felling  of  trees,  the 
driving  of  the  logs,  the  sawing,  piling  and  distribu- 
tion of  the  lumber,  to  the  final  sale  in  the  best 
markets.  He  was  constantly  reading  on  the  sub- 
ject, aiid  carefully  watching  production  and  prices. 
He  knew,  too,  better  than  most  men,  what  inter- 
minable anxiety  there  can  be  over  titles,  taxes, 
trespasses,  fires,  floods  and  droughts. '^ 

He  went  into  coal  and  iroD,  and  railroads,  helping 
particularly  in  the  building  of  the  Erie  Railroad, 
raising  subscriptions  for  it  by  going  from  store  to 
store.  He  saw,  and  was  interested  iu,  the  begin- 
ning of  steam  traffic  by  water  and  by  rail,  and  his 
wealth  increased  steadily  as  he  seized  the  ready-to- 
hand  opportunities  to  share  in  the  advancing  values. 
But  it  required  unlimited  courage  to  do  that,  and 
the  keenest  prescience  and  energy  to  lay  hold  of 
and  develop  the  right  interest  at  the  right  time. 

In  the  thick  of  all  these  growing  and  thriving 
enterprises,  with  their  heavy  responsibilities,  Mr. 
Dodge  seems  never  to  have  lost  sight  of  the  spiritual 
values  that  life  must  hold,  and  the  claims  of  others 
upon  those  who  are  gifted  with  constructive  ability. 
He  thoroughly  enjoyed  money-making,  and  in- 
tended to  become  wealthy.  At  the  same  time,  from 
the  start,  he  was  a  giA^er  of  money  and  time  and 
personality  to  a  multitude  of  good  causes.  Among 
these  were  theological  seminaries,  such  as  Union, 
Auburn,  Princeton,  Yale,  Chicago ;  and  colleges 
such  as  Williams,  Dartmouth,  Amherst,  Oberlin, 
Hamilton,  Grinuell,  and  Maryville.  Thousands  of 
young  men  were  aided  by  him  to  prepare  for  the 

[114] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


ministry.  He  saw  that  clerks  needed  adequate  read- 
ing rooms,  and  so  he  helped  to  found  the  Mercantile 
Library  in  New  York.  He  took  an  active  interest 
in  civic  affairs,  against  corruption  and  waste. 

In  1853,  through  the  death  of  Mr.  Phelps,  Mr. 
Dodge  became  the  head  of  the  firm.  His  business 
skill  was  taxed  to  the  utmost  under  the  new  respon- 
sibilities, yet  he  took  on  more  affairs  than  ever. 
He  was  able  to  accomplish  an  immense  amount  of 
work  without  friction,  because  he  worked  in  faith 
and  by  system,  and  had  the  faculty  of  turning 
quickly  from  one  duty  to  another  with  concentra- 
tion on  the  task  in  hand. 

He  was  an  early  riser,  allowing  a  half  hour  for 
prayer  and  Bible  reading  in  his  private  library. 
After  an  eight-o'clock  breakfast,  he  would  meet 
callers  in  his  own  home,  as  also  when  he  returned 
in  the  evening.  Before  breakfast  he  would  lead 
family  prayers  for  the  whole  household  in  the  main 
library.  It  is  no  wonder  that  days  thus  begun 
were  rich  in  success  of  every  kind. 

He  would  reach  his  office  at  nine,  open  and  read 
his  always  large  mail,  disposing  of  it  rapidly  with 
the  aid  of  secretaries.  The  plans  for  the  day  were 
talked  over  with  his  helpers,  checks  were  brought 
in  for  him  to  sign,  and,  while  attaching  his  signa- 
ture, he  received  his  first  callers,  with  courtesy  yet 
with  no  tolerance  of  time- wasting.  When  the  list  of 
callers  was  ended,  he  took  up  a  scrutiny  of  credits. 
Then  he  visited  Wall  Street  and  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  and  took  a  hurried  lunch,  standing  ;  at- 
tended one  or  two  board  meetings  j  and  from  two  to 

[115] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


four  was  iu  bis  own  office  again,  from  which  he  weut 
to  a  National  Temperance  Society  or  an  American 
Bible  Society  committee  meeting,  reaching  home  for 
dinner  at  six. 

Mr.  Dodge's  relation  to  the  peace  efforts  preced- 
ing the  Civil  War,  his  support  of  Lincoln,  his  serv- 
ice on  The  Christian  Commission  with  George  H. 
Stuart  and  others,  constitute  an  entire  period  of 
service  sufficient  for  a  separate  stud3\  He  came  to 
love  the  South,  and  he  invested  so  heavily  in  lands 
in  Georgia,  and  did  so  much  for  the  people  of  the 
region  in  which  his  lands  were  situated,  that  a 
county  was  named  for  him,  and  to  that  he  presented 
a  county  house.  Whatever  he  did  was  on  this 
princely  and  daring  scale.  He  seemed  always  to 
work  with  immense  reserves  of  body  and  spirit,  and 
yet  to  overflow  in  work  and  in  beneficence. 

In  1864  he  was  elected  to  Congress,  but  he  did  not 
take  his  seat  there  until  1866,  owing  to  a  contested 
election  in  which,  however,  his  victory  was  com- 
plete. Hon.  J.  R.  Grinnell  of  Iowa  writes  of  Mr. 
Dodge's  place  among  his  associates  :  "A  historical 
gathering  was  held  iu  the  Capitol,  in  1866,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Congressional  Temperance  So- 
ciety. Mr.  Dodge  read  the  names  of  -forty-seven 
senators  and  rej)resentatives  who  were  pledged  to 
total  abstinence.  To  perpetuate  the  influence  of  this 
great  occasion,  Mr.  Dodge  himself  sent  pamphlets  of 
the  proceedings  and  speeches  all  over  the  country. 
In  the  Congressional  prayer  meeting,  where  senators 
and  members  of  all  sections  and  of  every  shade  of 
religious  belief  met  to  supplicate  the  favor  of  the 

[116] 


WILLIAM  E.   DODGE 


God  of  all  natioDS,  Mr,  Dodge  was  a  prompt  attend- 
ant aud  the  animating  soul.  As  a  Christian  gentle- 
man his  cheerfulness  and  uniform  courtesy  left  an 
indelible  imi)ression  upon  his  associates.  The  an- 
nouncement of  his  name  as  a  speaker  or  presiding 
ofi&cer  would  attract  a  crowded  assembly.  With 
the  colored  congregations  of  the  city  he  was  a 
special  favorite  as  a  speaker  ;  and  he  himself  found 
inspiration  in  their  hearty  'amens'  and  stirring 
songs,  which,  in  his  mind,  were  more  in  accord  with 
primitive  worship  than  operatic  airs  given  by  a 
professional  quartet. 

"In  the  Standing  Committees  of  Congress,  as  Mr. 
Dodge  was  not  a  member  at  the  opening  of  the  first 
session,  he  was  not  assigned  to  some  positions  for 
which  he  was  eminently  qualified.  He  served,  how- 
ever, upon  the  important  Committees  of  Commerce 
and  of  Foreign  Affairs,  besides  others,  special  and 
select.^' 

Even  while  the  war  was  still  going  on,  Mr.  Dodge 
had  become  interested  in  the  education  of  the  Negro. 
He  gave  liberally  to  the  school  at  Oxford,  Pennsyl- 
vania, known  now  as  Lincoln  University,  a  school 
for  the  training  of  negro  teachers  and  preachers ; 
and  to  Zion  Wesley  College,  at  Salisbury,  North 
Carolina,  aud  to  many  other  schools  such  as  Hamp- 
ton and  Howard  University. 

He  was  appointed  by  President  Grant  one  of  the 
ten  commissioners  to  manage  the  nation's  Indian 
affairs,  aud  there  served  with  George  H.  Stuart 
on  the  Purchasing  Committee  in  doing  away  with 
abuses  that  had  become  far  too  well  intrenched. 

[117] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


As  Mr.  Dodge  approaclied  the  years  when  most 
men  relinquish  much  of  their  work,  he  seemed  to  be 
as  eager  as  ever  for  service.  He  was  in  great  de- 
mand as  an  after-dinner  speaker  ;  he  did  not  with- 
draw from  the  harder  tasks  his  position  laid  upon 
him,  but  stood  for  his  convictions  with  zeal  and  in- 
trepid determination,  as  in  his  opposition  to  Sunday 
traffic  on  railroads  of  which  he  was  a  director.  On 
this  subject  he  said  in  an  address  in  Boston,  in  1879  : 
''The  question  of  the  day  for  everyone  who  loves 
his  country  and  believes  in  the  value  and  importance 
of  the  Christian  Sabbath,  as  we  in  America  have 
honored  and  maintained  it,  the  great  question  is, 
shall  this  mighty  railroad  interest  become  one  of  the 
chief  instruments  in  transforming  our  American 
Sabbath  into  the  continental  holiday,  or — as  it  is 
fast  growing  to  be — a  day  like  all  the  others  of  the 
week  1  I  have  no  doubt  it  is  within  the  power  of 
the  intelligent  lovers  of  the  Sabbath,  associated  with 
the  Christian  stockholders  in  these  roads  to  bring 
about  a  change  that  shall  stop  the  transit  of  freight 
trains,  and  reduce  the  passenger  traffic  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  influence  shall  tell  on  the  side  of 
Sabbath  observance.  I  have  no  question  that  if 
Christian  men,  when  about  to  invest  in  the  securities 
of  a  railroad,  would  ask,  '  Does  this  road  run  on 
Sunday  ? '  and  if  so,  refuse  to  put  money  there,  it 
would  go  far  to  settle  this  problem.  But  if  the  only 
inquiry  is,  '  Does  the  road  pay  regular  dividends?  ' 
no  matter  how  they  get  the  money,  do  not  be  too 
sure  of  your  dividends.  Those  overworked  engi- 
neers, conductors  or  brakemen  may  lose  all  interest 
[118] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


in  their  duties,  become  discouraged  and  careless,  or 
incapable  of  that  prompt  action  necessary  in  the 
moment  of  danger,  and  an  accident  may  occur  which 
will  not  only  send  many  into  eternity,  but  cause  a 
loss  that  will  make  a  dividend  imi)ossible. 

' '  Eailway  managers  determined  to  use  the  Sab- 
bath as  any  other  day  must  either  drive  the  Sabbath - 
loving  employees  from  their  roads,  or  so  demoralize 
them  that  they  will  soon  come  to  feel  that  if  there 
is  no  binding  force  in  the  Fourth  Commandment, 
there  is  none  in  the  Eighth  !  Stockholders  will  find 
they  have  a  pecuniary  interest  in  so  conducting 
their  roads  that  men  can  be  employed  who  believe 
they  have  a  right  to  claim  the  one  day's  rest  which 
God  and  nature  demand." 

This  same  spirit  was  shown  in  his  advocacy  of  the 
temperance  cause,  as  President  of  the  National 
Temperance  Society,  which  he  had  helped  to  found. 
"This  was  his  favorite  agency,"  writes  the  biog- 
rapher already  quoted  ;  "  and  its  history,  illustrious 
with  energetic  and  effective  labors  for  the  enlight- 
enment and  salvation  of  mankind  from  drink,  is  his 
temperance  biography.  Not  once  only,  but  many 
times,  were  his  scruples  respected  in  miscellaneous 
social  circles,  the  decanter  being  banished  and  the 
wine  glasses  turned  down.  From  such  bodies  as  de- 
rived a  portion  of  their  income  from  the  sale  of  in- 
toxicants, as  was  the  case  with  several  clubs  with 
which  he  had  been  allied,  he  quietly  withdrew,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  evil.  Thus  he 
shaped  his  life  into  noble  consistency." 

One  day,  early  in  1883,  while  he  was  on  an  er- 
[119  J 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


rand  of  helpfulness  with  Mrs.  Dodge,  he  was  seized 
with  an  illness  that  resulted  in  his  death  on  Feb- 
ruary 8.  A  sense  of  heavy  loss  was  felt  in  all  direc- 
tions. It  was  not  merely  the  head  of  a  great  mer- 
cantile house  who  had  gone  on,  but  a  friend  to 
thousands  who  bore  testimony  to  their  love  for  him. 

Of  him  Mark  Hopkins  wrote  words  that  should 
impress  themselves  upon  the  aspiring  consciousness 
of  every  young  man  who  reads  them  : 

"  Mr.  Dodge's  example  was  heroic.  It  was  so  be- 
cause he  had  at  his  command  the  fullest  means  of 
personal  gratification  ;  because  it  was  opposed  to 
the  example  and  the  spirit,  almost  universal,  of 
those  with  whom  he  was  associated  j  and  because  it 
sprang  from  a  heroic  motive.  No  man  was  more 
cheerful  or  joyous,  or  enjoyed  more  perfectly  those 
tasteful  and  beautiful  influences  which  wealth 
can  produce.  No ;  it  was  not  from  any  asceti- 
cism !  It  was  because  he  felt  that  he  thus  gained 
a  foothold  which  would  enable  him,  when  he  reached 
his  hand  down  to  lift  up  a  struggling  brother,  to 
do  it  more  effectually.  And  it  did  give  such  a 
foothold  ;  and,  knowing  this,  it  was  the  very  spirit 
of  Christ  in  him  which  induced  him  to  sacrifice  him- 
self. He  asked  no  abstract  question  ;  but,  seeing 
that  his  influence  here  and  now  for  good  would  be 
thus  promoted,  he  adopted  at  once  the  principle  of 
the  apostle,  that  if  meat  would  make  his  brother  to 
offend,  he  would  eat  no  meat  while  the  world  stood." 

Or,  again  these  words  of  Dr.  S.  Irenteus  Prime 
may  well  remain  in  the  memory  of  every  student  of 
successful  living : 

[120] 


WILLIAM  E.  DODGE 


''Mr.  Dodge  personally  worked  to  do  good  ;  like 
his  Master,  he  went  about  doing  good.  He  had 
more  'irons  in  the  fire,'  he  was  a  more  busy  man, 
with  a  greater  variety  of  engagements  for  each  and 
every  hour  of  the  day,  than  any  man  we  ever  knew. 
Active,  wiry,  untiring,  even  down  to  old  age,  he 
went  from  one  duty  to  another  ;  keeping  memo- 
randa of  appointments,  and  a  man  to  remind  him  ; 
despatching  business  with  promptness,  but  not  with- 
out careful  attention.  He  literally  gave  himself  to 
the  world,  the  Church,  the  poor— to  Christ.  His 
large  heart  took  in  every  good  work  ;  and  no  list  of 
his  charities,  nor  of  the  institutions  which  he  founded 
or  supported,  will  ever  tell  the  extent  or  the  nature 
of  his  deeds  of  love.  How  or  where  he  began  this 
living  for  others,  it  may  be  hard  to  say.  That  it 
ended  only  with  his  life,  we  know.  That  it  grew 
with  him  as  a  part  of  his  being,  becoming  a  broader 
range  of  existence,  more  absorbing  and  diffusive,  as 
means  and  years  and  knowledge  of  the  wants  of 
others  were  brought  into  the  sphere  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, was  evident  year  by  year  until  the  end.'' 

But  the  end  of  such  a  life  is  not  yet,  for  its  im- 
pulses will  move  in  the  spirit  of  many  a  young  man 
of  to-day  whose  face  is  set  toward  right-minded 
achievement. 


[121] 


IX 

Cyrus  H.  McCormick 

Inventor  and  Business  Builder 


A  remarkable  book  is  the  volume  by  Herbert 
A,  Cassoriy  "  Cyrus  Hall  McCormick,  His  Life 
and  Work:' 


IX 
CYRUS  H.  McCORMICK 

The  harvest  was  almost  over,  and  only  a  little  of 
the  wheat  on  the  farm  was  stand iDg.  The  machine 
on  which  the  farmer's  son  had  spent  much  thought 
and  time  was  to  be  tested  on  that  July  day  in  1831, 
and  father  and  mother  and  brothers  and  sisters 
were  eager  to  see  what  Cyrus  had  evolved.  For 
the  father  had  studied  the  problem  of  the  reaper, 
and  the  son  had  taken  up  the  experiment  at  a  point 
where  the  older  man  had  laid  it  down,  and  it  re- 
mained to  be  seen  whether  Cyrus  McCormick's 
principle  would  work  in  practice. 

When  the  reaper  was  driven  into  the  standing 
grain,  and  the  machine  cut  it,  and  spread  it  upon 
the  platform  of  the  reaper  to  be  raked  off  by  a 
laborer,  that  Virginia  farm  near  Lexington  became 
the  birthplace  of  an  enterprise  that  has  given  the 
world  a  new  agriculture,  with  all  its  vast  and  far- 
reaching  service  to  mankind. 

The  man  behind  the  machine  became  one  of  the 
colossal  figures  of  American  enterprise.  He  was 
even  then  a  hard  worker  and  close  student  of  farm 
problems.  His  father,  from  the  time  Cyrus  was 
seven  years  old,  had  been  trying  to  work  out  a 
practical  reaper,  but  the  machine  had  never  been 
satisfactory. 

[125] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


The  father,  Eobert  McCormick,  was  a  mau  of 
force  and  ability,  of  sound  Scotch-Irish  stock,  and 
the  mother  was  iu  all  things  his  partner.  He  owned 
some  eighteen  hundred  acres  of  farm  lands,  but  he 
had  also  two  gristmills,  two  sawmills,  a  smelting 
furnace,  and  a  blacksmith  shop.  He  was  an  in- 
ventor of  farm  machinery,  and  in  all  this  mechan- 
ical work  his  sons  labored  with  him.  The  family 
was  a  busy  unit  of  production,  for  homemade  appli- 
ances of  all  sorts  were  made  by  the  various  members. 

When  Cyrus  began  to  work  in  the  fields,  swing- 
ing the  old-time  wheat  cradle  at  harvest,  he  decided 
he  could  improve  on  that,  by  making  the  cradle 
smaller,  which  he  did.  And  before  Cyrus  Mc- 
Cormick was  through  he  made  harvesting  ma- 
chinery that  changed  the  conditions  of  human  life 
the  world  around. 

His  religious  life  was  not  a  superstructure  but  a 
foundation.  It  was  never  taken  on  as  an  interest 
of  mature  years,  after  the  fight  for  material  success 
was  over,  but  it  was  the  undergirding  of  all  that  he 
purposed.  His  ancestors  were  Calvinists,  believing 
with  all  their  might  in  the  sovereignty  of  God. 
When  Cyrus  was  twenty-five,  special  meetings  were 
held  in  the  church  on  his  grandfather's  farm.  All 
day  long  the  preaching  went  on,  and  on  the  fourth 
and  closing  day  those  who  wanted  to  confess  Christ 
were  asked  to  rise.  Cyrus  did  not  do  so.  "That 
night,"  his  biographer  tells  us,  •'  his  father  went  to 
his  bedside  and  gently  reproached  him.  ^  My  son,' 
he  said,  '  don't  you  know  that  your  silence  is  a  pub- 
lic rejection  of  your  Saviour'?'  Cyrus  was  con- 
[  126  ] 


CYRUS  H.  Mccormick 


science  strickeD.  He  leaped  from  his  bed  aud  be-, 
gau  to  dress  liimself.  'I'll  go  and  see  old  Billy 
McCluug,'  he  said.  Half  an  hour  later,  old  Billy 
McCluDg,  who  was  a  universally  respected  religious 
leader  in  the  community,  was  amazed  to  be  called 
out  of  his  sleep  by  a  greatly  troubled  young  man, 
who  wanted  to  know  by  what  means  he  might  make 
his  peace  with  his  Maker.  The  next  Sunday  this 
young  man  stood  up  in  the  church,  and  became  in 
name  what  he  already  was  by  nature  and  inherit- 
ance, a  Christian  of  the  Presbyterian  faith." 

Down  deep  in  his  character  there  was  granite 
bedrock.  To  tackle  the  hardest  problem  first  was 
a  matter  of  principle,  and  a  life  habit  with  him. 
He  believed  that  the  quickest  and  surest  progress 
comes  through  getting  the  impossibilities  changed 
into  accomplishment  at  once.  In  his  study  of  his 
father's  machine  he  saw  that  it  could  cut  grain  but 
it  did  not  deliver  it  smoothly ;  it  could  not  handle 
tangled  and  fallen  grain  properly ;  it  was  radically 
defective.  Then  he  set  to  work  to  make  a  thor- 
oughly practical  reaper,  equal  to  the  conditions 
that  must  be  met. 

The  reciprocating  blade  was  one  of  Cyrus  Mc- 
Cormick's  independent  and  very  practical  concep- 
tions. In  all,  he  worked  out  seven  principles  which 
have  never  been  abandoned  in  such  machinery  :  a 
curved  arm  at  the  end  of  the  knife,  as  a  divider  to 
separate  the  grain  to  be  cut  from  the  grain  to  be 
left ;  the  reciprocating  blade ;  fingers  to  hold  the 
grain  in  position  to  be  cut ;  a  reel  to  lift  up  the 
fallen  grain  ;  a  platform  to  catch  the  grain  as  it  is 
[127] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


cut ;  a  side-draught  machine  ;  oue  driving  wheel  to 
cany  the  weight,  and  operate  the  reel  and  cutting 
blade. 

In  1832,  near  the  town  of  Lexington,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  about  a  hundred  persons,  McCormick  gave 
an  exhibition  of  his  machine,  in  the  midst  of  jeers 
and  incredulity,  where  the  land  was  rough.  He  did 
not  do  so  well  as  he  knew  he  could  ;  but  the  owner 
of  the  adjoining  field  told  him  to  pull  down  the 
fence,  drive  over  there,  and  go  to  work.  He  cut  six 
acres  successfully,  and  the  machine  was  driven  into 
Lexington  ;  and  there,  among  others  who  saw  it, 
was  Professor  Bradshaw  of  the  Lexington  Female 
Academy.  "This  machine,"  he  finally  called  out 
to  the  crowd,  "  is  worth  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars."    And  he  meant  it. 

How  much  more  it  was  really  worth  no  one  then 
even  dreamed.  That  is,  no  one  but  young  McCor- 
mick. One  day,  when  he  was  riding  on  his  horse, 
carrying  to  a  foundry  a  pattern  of  the  mold  board  of 
a  plow  he  had  invented,  the  horse  stopped  to  drink 
in  midstream  as  they  were  crossing.  As  Cyrus 
looked  out  upon  a  fertile  tract  of  land  beside  the 
stream,  he  had  a  vision  of  vast  possibilities  for  his 
reaper  invention  in  a  daydream  of  future  success. 
But  he  was  almost  alone  in  his  great  hope.  A  way 
must  be  found  to  perfect  and  to  sell  his  reapers. 
He  believed  he  could  secure  the  needed  money  by 
farming.  He  began  to  advertise  his  machines  in  a 
local  paper,  at  fifty  dollars  each,  but  no  buyers 
seized  this  opportunity.  It  was  nine  years  before 
he  sold  one  to  a  farmer. 

[128] 


CYRUS  H.  Mccormick 


He  worked  for  a  year  on  a  farm  giveu  him.  by  his 
father  ;  then,  not  finding  the  needed  return  in  that, 
he  got  his  father  and  his  school-teacher  to  buikl, 
with  him,  an  iron  furnace.  In  1835  he  was  making 
iron.  In  1839  he  had  not  only  made  no  headway 
with  the  reaper,  but  the  furnace  became  a  failure, 
and  Cyrus  gave  up  his  farm  and  all  that  he  had  to 
his  creditors.  But  he  did  not  sell  the  reaper.  It 
would  not  have  been  regarded  by  others  as  a  good 
asset. 

Then  McCormick  began  to  build  victory  out  of 
defeat  by  making  reapers  in  the  log  workshop  on 
the  home  farm.  In  the  year  of  the  furnace  failure 
he  gave  a  public  exhibition,  and  cut  two  acres  of 
wheat  in  an  hour.  And  still  the  farmers  were  not 
buyers.  A  year  later,  however,  a  man  who  had 
seen  this  performance  came  a  considerable  distance, 
and  invested  fifty  dollars  in  a  reaper.  A  few  weeks 
after  this  two  farmers  came  from  forty  miles  away 
and  ordered  machines.  McCormick  was  not  quite 
satisfied  with  the  machine,  so  he  took  only  one  of 
these  orders. 

In  1842  he  sold  seven  ;  in  1843,  twenty-nine  ;  in 
1844,  fifty ;  and  he  lived  to  see  the  works  in  Chicago 
turning  out  fifty  thousand  machines  a  year,  in  1884. 
The  story  of  the  forty  intervening  years  is  the  story 
of  the  growth  of  a  giant  industry,  and  a  giant  man 
of  will  power,  energy  and  commanding  ability  as  a 
business  builder. 

Mr.  McCormick  sold  rights  to  others  to  sell  the 
reaper  ;  he  noted  numerous  sales  in  the  West,  and 
accordingly  set  out  on  a  three-thousaud-mile  journey 

[129] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


tlirougli  what  we  now  call  the  Middle  West  to  see 
where  he  could  build  and  traDSi)ort  his  machines  to 
better  advantage.  And  it  was  characteristic  of  his 
sagacity  and  foresight  and  courage  that  he  should 
decide  upon  Chicago,  then  a  rather  dilapidated 
town  of  about  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  but  invit- 
ing enough  to  him  because  of  its  location. 

McCormick  had  no  money,  but  he  must  have  a 
factory  in  Chicago.  He  found  a  partner  in  the  most 
prominent  man  there,  William  B.  Ogden,  who  gave 
him  twenty -five  thousand  dollars  for  a  half  interest 
in  the  reaper,  and  the  factory  was  built — the  largest 
iu  the  town.  In  1849  McCormick  bought  Ogden's 
interest,  paying  him  back  his  twenty-five  thousand 
dollars,  and  as  much  more  for  profit. 

Cyrus  McCormick  then  began  to  develo23  a  sales 
system,  in  which  a  new  feature  was  the  written 
guarantee,  and  another  was  the  fixed  price.  He 
was  already  a  confident  and  consistent  user  of  adver- 
tising, and  in  this  he  became  an  expansionist. 

He  was  terrifically  energetic  in  meeting  competi- 
tion, of  which  he  had  his  full  share.  He  scattered 
agents  everywhere,  subjected  his  machine  to  the 
most  severe  uses  in  contests  with  others  ;  and  he  was 
a  friend  to  the  farmer,  giving  him  ample  credit, 
and  dealing  leniently  with  him  as  to  payments. 
"It  is  better  that  I  should  wait  for  the  money  than 
that  you  should  wait  for  the  machine  that  you 
need,"  was  his  way  of  putting  it.  In  1850  his  plans 
had  been  so  well  developed  that  he  had  every  kind 
of  competition — and  his  original  patent  had  expired 
two  years  earlier. 

[130] 


CYRUS  H.  Mccormick 


He  thought  his  pateuts  should  be  exteuded.  He 
had  made  ouly  a  begiuuiug,  for  the  short  harvest 
season  of  only  a  few  weeks  each  year  gave  him  scant 
time  for  experiment.  He  had  as  yet  made  little  or 
nothing  from  the  reaper.  But  notwithstanding  an 
eight  years'  fight,  none  of  his  patents  was  renewed. 
He  must  go  on  without  tliat  aid.  When  he  found 
that  the  government  would  not  give  him  the  i)rotec- 
tion  he  asked,  he  prepared  to  go  after  those  who 
were  making  his  reaper  without  arrangements  with 
him.  His  biographer  vividly  describes  one  of  these 
encounters  : 

''  He  engaged  three  of  the  master  lawyers  of  the 
American  bar,  William  H.  Seward,  E.  N.  Dicker- 
son  and  Senator  Eeverdy  Johnson,  and  brought  suit 
against  Manny  and  Emerson,  of  Eockford,  Illinois, 
for  making  McCormick  Eeapers  without  a  license. 

''  Then  came  a  three-year  struggle  that  shook  the 
country  and  did  much  to  shape  the  history  of  the 
American  people.  Manny  and  Emerson,  who  were 
shrewd  and  forceful  men,  hired  twice  as  many  law- 
yers as  McCormick  and  prepared  to  defend  them- 
selves. They  selected  as  the  members  of  this  legal 
bodj^guard,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Peter  H.  Watson,  George  Hard- 
ing and  Congressman  H.  Winter  Davis. 

"  It  was  a  battle  of  giants.  Greek  met  Greek 
with  weapons  of  eloquence.  But  Stanton  outclassed 
his  great  codebaters  in  a  speech  of  unanswerable 
power,  which  unfortunately  was  not  reported.  The 
speech  so  vividly  impressed  McCormick  that  in  his 
next  lawsuit  he  at  once  engaged  Stanton.  It  awoke 
[131] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


the  brain  of  Lincoln,  as  be  afterwards  admitted^ 
and  drove  liim  back  to  a  more  comj)reheusive  study 
of  the  law.  It  gave  Lincoln  so  high  an  opinion  of 
Stauton's  ability  that,  when  he  became  President 
several  years  later,  he  chose  Stanton  to  be  his  Sec- 
retary of  War.  And  it  gripped  judge  and  jury 
with  such  effect  that  McCormick  lost  his  case.  It 
was  a  wonderful  speech. 

"  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  made  no  speech  at  all, 
was  the  one  who  derived  the  most  beuefit  in  the  end 
from  this  lawsuit.  It  not  only  aroused  his  ambi- 
tions, but  gave  him  his  first  big  fee,  one  thousand 
dollars.  This  money  came  to  him  at  the  precise 
moment  when  he  needed  it  most,  to  enable  him  to 
enter  into  the  famous  debate  with  Douglas— the  de- 
bate that  made  him  the  inevitable  candidate  of  the 
Eepublican  Party. 

''  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  closely  the  destinies 
of  Lincoln  aud  McCormick  were  interwoven.  Both 
were  born  in  1809,  on  farms  in  the  South.  Both 
struggled  through  a  youth  of  adversity  and  first 
came  into  promiuence  in  Illinois.  Both  labored  to 
preserve  the  Union,  and  when  the  War  of  Secession 
came  it  was  the  reaper  that  enabled"  Lincoln  to  feed 
his  armies.  Both  men  were  emancipators,  the  oue 
from  slavery  and  the  other  from  famine  ;  and  both 
to-day  sleep  under  the  soil  of  Illinois.  No  other 
two  Americans  had  heavier  tasks  than  they,  and 
none  worked  more  mightily  for  the  common  good." 

Mr.  McCormick  was  always  ready  to  fight  for  a 
principle  of  fair  dealing.  He  was  a  man  of  many 
lawsuits,  among  which  was  one  that  his  biographer 

[  132  ] 


CYRUS  H.  Mccormick 


calls  "probably  the  best siugleiDstauce of  llie man's 
dogged  tenacity  in  defense  of  a  principle."  With 
his  family  party  of  six  and  with  nine  trunks,  he  was 
about  to  leave  Philadelphia  for  Chicago.  Just  be- 
fore the  train  started  the  baggage  master  demanded 
eight  dollars  and  seventy  cents  for  excess  baggage. 
Mr.  McCormick  refused  to  pay  the  charge,  and  with 
his  family  left  the  train,  directing  that  his  trunks  be 
taken  oif.  But  the  trunks  went  on  their  memorable 
journey.  They  were  ordered  off  at  Pittsburgh  by  a 
telegram  from  the  president  of  the  road,  to  w^hom 
Mr.  McCormick  referred  the  matter.  Then  the  Mc- 
Cormicks  took  the  next  train.  The  trunks,  how- 
ever, had  been  carried  through  to  Chicago,  as  the 
family  learned  when  they  reached  Pittsburgh.  And 
in  Chicago  the  next  day  they  found  that  the  trunks 
had  been  consumed  in  a  fire  that  destroyed  the 
depot. 

Mr.  McCormick  sued  the  railroad  for  the  value  of 
the  trunks,  $7,193.  This  was  in  18G2.  Twenty 
years  later,  after  many  victories  and  consequent  ap- 
peals, he  won  his  case  before  the  United  States  Su- 
preme Court.  It  was  not  until  three  years  later, 
after  McCormick's  death,  that  the  railroad  paid  to 
his  estate  the  original  value  of  the  trunks,  and 
twenty-three  years'  interest,  amounting  in  all  to 
$18,060.79.  Such  tenacity  of  purpose  was  sure  to 
be  found  in  other  phases  of  this  energetic  man's  ca- 
reer. 

Mr.  McCormick  had  the  keenest  possible  eye  for 
details,  and  at  the  same  time  an  intolerance  of  any- 
thing petty  or  inconsequent.  He  seemed  at  his  best 
[133] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


when  everything  was  going  wrong,  and  be  could 
laugh  at  losses,  put  them  behind  him  resolutely, 
and  push  on  more  energetically  than  ever.  ''I  ex- 
pect to  die  in  the  harness,"  he  said,  ''because  this 
is  not  the  world  for  rest.  This  is  the  world  for 
work.     In  the  next  world  we  will  have  the  rest." 

"His  plan  of  work,"  says  his  biographer,  "so 
far  as  he  could  be  said  to  have  a  plan,  was  this  : 
'  One  Thing  at  a  Time,  and  the  Hardest  Thing  First.' 
He  followed  the  line  of  most  resistance.  If  the 
hardest  thing  can  be  done,  he  reasoned,  all  the  rest 
will  follow.  And  as  for  all  work  that  was  merely 
routine,  he  left  as  much  as  possible  of  it  to  others. 
He  was  not  an  organizer  so  much  as  a  creator  and 
a  pioneer." 

He  was  insistent  upon  correctness,  upon  doing 
the  thing  as  it  ought  to  be  done,  in  every  sphere  of 
activity.  If  things  were  wrong,  or  headed  in  the 
wrong  direction,  they  must  be  set  right,  including 
clocks  and  watches  and  small  accounts  as  well  as 
large. 

But  any  review  of  Cyrus  McCormick's  life  will 
discover  all  through  his  struggles  and  successes 
two  invariable  qualities  that  were  preeminent — his 
Scotch  Covenanter  sense  of  God,  and  his  tremen- 
dous will.  "  The  exhibition  of  his  powerful  will," 
said  one  of  his  lawyers,  "  was  at  times  actually  ter- 
rible. If  any  other  man  on  this  earth  ever  had 
such  a  will  certainly  I  have  not  heard  of  it." 

When  the  Chicago  fire  of  1871  devastated  the 
city,  his  factory  was  turning  out  about  ten  thousand 
harvesters  a  year.     He  consulted  with  his  wife  as  to 

[134] 


CYRUS  H.   McCORMICK 


whether  he  should  rebuild,  or  retire  from  business, 
aud  she  advised  him  to  rebuild.  The  home  was 
then  iu  New  York.  He  ordered  that  house  sold, 
telegraphed  his  agents  everywhere  to  collect  all  the 
accounts  they  could,  aud  gave  orders  to  build  in 
Chicago  on  a  larger  scale  than  before.  Others  were 
roused  from  discouragement  by  this  example,  and 
began  the  rehabilitation  of  the  city. 

McCormick  saw  enough  of  the  moral  and  religious 
needs  of  the  West  of  his  day  to  convince  him  that 
these  frontier  towns  needed  strong  preachers.  By 
a  gift  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  1859  he 
made  it  possible  to  remove  a  needy  seminary  from 
New  Albany,  Indiana,  to  Chicago,  aud  there,  as 
the  Northwestern  Theological  Seminary,  to  work 
upon  a  substantial  foundation,  the  name  being 
changed  later  to  McCormick  Theological  Seminary. 
On  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  founder's 
birth,  President  W.  W.  Moore,  of  Union  Theolog- 
ical Seminary  of  Eichmond,  Virginia,  in  an  his- 
torical address,  quoted  from  two  of  Cyrus  Mc- 
Cormick's  early  letters  : 

"He  believed  not  only  that  there  should  be  busi- 
ness in  our  religion  and  religion  in  our  business, 
but  that  religion  is  our  business.  'I  often  regret,' 
he  writes,  '  that  my  example  has  not  been  better, 
more  pious  ;  and  yet  I  have  often  felt  a  concern  that 
was  not  expressed.  Business  is  not  inconsistent 
with  Christianity  ;  but  the  latter  ought  to  be  a  help 
to  the  former,  giving  a  confidence  and  resignation, 
after  using  all  proper  means,  which  speak  peace  to 
the  soul.'    And  again  at  a  critical  juncture  in  his 

[135] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


business  affairs,  when  he  was  struggling  with  manu- 
facturers who  had  broken  their  contracts,  he  says  : 
'  This  is  the  point  that  should  be  aimed  at,  the  feel- 
ing that  should  be  cherished — unconditional  sub- 
mission and  resignation  to  the  will  and  hand  of 
Providence  ;  and  with  his  smiles,  the  most  crooked 
ways  may  be  made  straight  and  chastisements  con- 
verted into  blessings.  But  for  the  fact  that  Provi- 
dence has  seemed  to  assist  me  in  our  business  it  has 
at  times  seemed  that  I  would  almost  sink  under  the 
weight  of  responsibility  hanging  upon  me.  But  I 
believe  the  Lord  will  help  me  out.  How  grateful 
we  should  be !  How  humble  on  account  of  un- 
worthiness  !  And  yet  how  rejoicing  that,  unworthy 
as  we  are,  the  Law  has  been  satisfied,  and  we  may 
be  saved  by  faith.'"  And  on  the  same  occasion 
President  McClure  of  McCormick  Seminary  said  : 
*^His  letters  were  a  combination  of  intense  devo- 
tion to  business  detail,  and  of  intense  devotion  to 
religious  principle." 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  Mr.  McCormick  founded 
the  seminary,  and  repeatedly  gave  to  it  as  need 
arose ;  and  with  the  intention  of  supporting  funda- 
mental Presbyterianism,  he  bought  The  Interior, 
now  The  Continent,  and  called  to  its  service  in  all 
departments  men  who,  with  him,  gave  it  its  place 
of  eminence  and  influence  among  periodicals  to-day. 
Just  before  the  Civil  War  he  bought  the  Chicago 
Times,  chiefly  to  keep  before  Chicagoans  the  view- 
points of  the  South,  and  he  attended  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention  in  Baltimore  so  that  he  might  lay 
before  Southerners  the  views  of  the  North.     ^'He 

[136] 


CYRUS  H.  Mccormick 


was  a  maker,  not  a  collector,  of  public  opiaion,  and 
instead  of  pandering  to  the  war  frenzy,  he  opposed 
it — put  his  newspaper  squarely  in  its  path,  and 
held  it  there  until  the  feet  of  the  crowd  had 
trampled  it  into  an  impossible  wreck."  He  was 
entirely  willing  to  spend  a  fortune  in  time  and 
money  in  any  cause  to  which  he  was  devoted. 

When  Cyrus  McCormick  died,  in  1884,  more  than 
half  a  million  of  his  machines  were  in  use,  the 
world  around,  and  the  United  States  had  been  for 
some  years  the  greatest  wheat-producing  nation. 
The  indomitable  man  who  had  dared  ridicule  and 
poverty  through  thick  and  thin  lived  to  see  the 
economic  condition  of  millions  of  his  fellows 
changed  for  the  better  because  of  his  answer  to  the 
call  that  came  to  him  in  the  days  of  drudgery  and 
seeming  failure.  And  who  can  measure  the  in- 
fluence of  those  other  harvesters  who  have  gone  out, 
and  who  are  yet  to  go  out  from  that  institution  he 
made  possible  in  the  city  of  his  business  success — 
for  the  fields  are  indeed  ' '  white  unto  harvest ' '  ? 


[137] 


X 


Henry  Clay  Trumbull 

Business  Man^  Missio^iary^ 
Anny  Chaplain  and  Editor 


«  The  Life  of  Henry  Clay  Trumbull  "  //  by 
Philip  E.  Howard,  with  an  introduction  by  his  son, 
Charles  Gallaudet  Trumbull. 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 

In  the  railroad  office  the  clerks  were  tryiug  their 
strength.  They  had  given  the  wheel  of  the  letter- 
press the  hardest  turn  they  could,  and  they  chal- 
lenged Henry  Clay  Trumbull  to  turn  it  further. 

He  was  a  thin,  wiry  chap,  strong  enough  in  the 
arms,  but  not  powerfully  built ;  and  that  wheel  was 
turned  as  far  as  the  office  strong  man  could  turn  it. 
Henry  heard  the  challenge,  and  throwing  his  whole 
being  into  the  contest,  he  sprang  at  the  letterpress, 
caught  the  wheel  in  a  terrifically  intense  grip,  and 
gave  it  such  a  wrench  that  he  broke  the  heavy  screw 
in  two. 

It  was  like  Henry  Trumbull  to  give  the  wheel  one 
turn  beyond  the  power  of  most  men  in  whatever  he 
undertook,  and  that  intensity  of  character,  always 
ready  for  instant  service,  carried  him  through  many 
a  difficult  undertaking  and  into  achievements  that 
enriched  the  lives  of  countless  thousands. 

Trumbull  spent  himself  so  freely  in  successive 
fields  of  usefulness  and  poured  out  his  life  so 
lavishly,  that  it  is  not  so  easy  to  say  in  what  special 
form  of  service  he  found  his  largest  usefulness. 

He  was  born  in  Stouiugton,  Connecticut,  June  8, 
1830,  and  his  busy  eartlilv  life  overflowed  into  the 
[  141  ] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


new  century  to  tlie  winter  of  1903.  His  family  was 
distinguished  in  colonial  history,  and  has  maintained 
its  distinction  by  specialized  service  in  many  fields 
in  our  own  times.  He  was,  as  a  boy,  privileged  to 
meet  or  to  see  in  his  home  village  many  noted  per- 
sonages of  the  day,  including  Andrew  Jackson, 
Martin  Van  Buren,  President  Tyler,  and  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Commodore  Hull,  of  the  ''  Consti- 
tution," and  Colonel  John  Trumbull  of  Washing- 
ton's staff,  the  artist  son  of  that  Governor  Jonathan 
Trumbull  of  Connecticut,  to  whom  Washington  gave 
the  name  of  ' '  Brother  Jonathan. ' '  One  of  his  play- 
mates was  "Jamie"  Whistler,  whose  talent  as  an 
artist  was  beginning  to  show  even  then.  And 
Henry  well  remembered  the  impression  made  upon 
his  mind  when  he  saw  and  heard  Adoniram  Judson, 
and  Albert  Bushnell,  the  "  Patriarch  of  West  Afri- 
can Missions.'' 

Henry  was  born  in  a  time  of  intense  political  ex- 
citement and  from  boyhood  onward  he  was  keenly 
interested  in  public  affairs,  at  eighteen  entering 
actively  into  the  local  work  of  bringing  out  voters 
in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1848.  His  life,  too, 
in  the  little  seaport  gave  him  contacts  with  world 
affairs,  for  Stonington  in  those  days  had  its  fleet  of 
sealing  vessels,  and  its  daring  sailors  like  Captain 
Nat  Palmer,  who,  when  only  eighteen,  in  his  forty- 
five-ton  sloop  "Hero,"  discovered  the  land  below 
the  South  Shetlands  in  the  Atlantic  which  was 
named  for  him  by  a  Eussian  fleet  commander  cruis- 
ing in  that  region. 

Young  Trumbull's  schooling  was  very  brief,  in- 

[142] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


eluding  its  beginnings  in  the  "dame  schools  "of 
the  period,  and  its  close  in  Williston  Seminary  when 
he  was  about  fourteen.  His  health  was  uncertain, 
aud  schooling  was  distasteful  to  him.  He  did  not 
seem  strong  enough  to  go  through  the  college  pre- 
paratory work,  or  to  enter  college.  And  so  the  boy, 
who  became  one  of  the  most  versatile  and  learned 
and  stimulatiug  writers  of  his  time,  was  obliged  to 
seek  education  from  other  sources. 

He  worked  in  his  uncle's  drug  store ;  he  worked 
in  a  bank  in  the  day,  and  in  the  steamboat  office  on 
the  wharf  at  night,  with  trunks  trundling  past,  and 
steam  blowing  off,  and  persons  coming  in  and  going 
out.  "Yet  I  must  settle  the  day's  accounts,"  he 
wrote,  "with  conductors  and  purser,  in  all  this 
hubbub.  After  that  training  I  could  sit  on  a  curb- 
stone in  a  city  street  aud  write  an  editorial  as 
easily  as  in  an  inner  study  in  a  clergyman's  house." 

From  his  childhood,  Henry  had  lived  in  a  home 
atmosphere  of  classical  culture,  New  England  wit 
and  strict  religious  practices,  and  he  had  taken  an 
active  part  in  the  local  Sunday-school  work.  At 
the  same  time,  he  had  been  a  social  leader  in  the 
village,  a  light-hearted,  winsome  young  fellow,  with 
an  eye  to  the  aesthetic  in  the  life  about  him.  Al- 
though he  had  gained  in  character  and  experiences 
he  had  not  gained  any  definite  purpose  for  the  future, 
nor  was  he  giving  much  thought  to  the  deeper  things 
of  life. 

His  father,  Gurdon  Trumbull,  knew  the  lad's 
nature  and  its  perils.  Father  and  son  were  walk- 
ing together  one  day,  when  suddenly  Gurdon  Trum- 
[143  1 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


bull  stopped,  turned  abruptly  to  liis  son,  and  asked 
with  great  earnestness : 

"Henry,  would  you  like  to  be  respected  and 
looked  up  to  by  all  your  companions,  as  you  grow 
up?" 

''  Of  course  I  would,  father." 

''Well,  if  you  won't  drink,  or  use  tobacco,  or 
dance,  or  j)lay  cards,  you  will  be  respected  by 
others,  if  you  have  nothiug  else  than  this  to  recom- 
mend you.  You  will  be  a  leader  through  self-con- 
trol, even  if  the  other  boys  have  more  brains  or 
more  friends  than  you  have."  Then  he  relapsed 
into  silence.  But  the  boy  understood.  He  was  not 
to  be  of  the  crowd. 

In  his  twenty-second  year  Henry  was  called  to  a 
clerical  position  in  the  Hartford  office  of  the  Hart- 
ford, Providence  and  Fiskhill  Eailroad.  Here  he 
plunged  into  hard  and  exacting  w^ork.  He  was  a 
spirited  fellow,  socially  iuclined,  and  yet  with  little 
time  now  for  anything  but  his  work.  But  his  grow- 
ing character  was  revealed  in  more  ways  than  one. 
His  disciplined  spirit  was  shown  in  a  battle  with 
self  on  one  occasion  which  would  have  seemed  to 
most  young  men  to  offer  no  occasion  for  a  battle. 
In  the  eugineering  department,  in  which  Henry 
eventually  became  paymaster  of  construction,  the 
young  clerks  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  borrowing 
from  the  chief  engineer's  desk,  in  his  absence,  an 
Inkstand  containing  a  special  ink.  Henry  accepted 
this  habit  as  one  of  the  office  practices,  and  one  day 
was  using  the  inkstand  when  his  chief,  Samuel  Ash- 
burner,  needed  it  at  once.  Sending  into  the  room 
[144] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


where  the  clerks  were  workiDgy  Mr.  Aahburiier  had 
the  yoaug  scribe  and  the  borrowed  inkstand  brought 
before  him. 

"Henry,"  he  said,  with  kindly  emx)hasis,  "I 
want  that  inkstaud  to  remain  on  my  desk  at  all 
times.     You  must  never  take  it  away." 

"I'll  bear  that  in  mind,  sir,"  answered  the  young 
man,  and  went  back  to  his  work. 

A  few  days  later  the  ink  was  missing  when  Mr. 
Ashburner  had  occasion  to  use  it.  Stei^piug  to  the 
door  of  the  clerks'  room,  he  called,  sharply, 
"  Henry  ! ' '  Youug  Trumbull  quickly  followed  him 
into  the  next  room. 

"Henry,"  he  exclaimed,  "what  did  I  tell  you 
about  that  inkstand  ?  " 

' '  You  told  me  not  to  take  it  away  again.  '^ 

' '  Yes,  and  I  meant  it.  Now,  bring  it  to  me  at 
once !  " 

Henry  passed  into  the  clerks'  room,  lifted  the 
missing  inkstand  from  the  desk  of  another,  and  car- 
ried it  to  his  chief.  As  he  placed  it  in  its  proper 
place  and  started  to  leave  the  room,  Mr.  Ashburner 
looked  severely  at  him.  "Henry,"  he  said,  em- 
phatically, "  never  let  this  happen  again." 

"I'll  bear  in  mind  what  you  say,  sir,"  was  the 
quiet  answer. 

Later  in  the  day  the  clerk  who  had  been  at  fault 
manfully  explained  the  whole  matter  to  his  superior. 
Henry  was  at  once  summoned.  With  an  earnest 
and  troubled  look  Mr.  Ashburner  received  him. 
"  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  this  morning  that  you 
hadn't  taken  that  inkstand  ?  " 
[145] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


^' You  didn't  ask  me,  sir,"  replied  Henry. 

The  chief  was  somewhat  nonplussed.  He  had 
found  men  ready  enough  to  lay  the  blame  upon 
others,  but  not  so  ready  to  keep  still,  when  even  a 
word  of  denial  might  clear  them.  The  interview 
was  closed  with  an  apology  from  the  chief,  and 
Henry  went  back  to  his  desk.  He  was  building 
character  while  helping  to  build  railroads. 

Trumbull's  spiritual  awakening  came  as  the  re- 
sult of  a  letter  from  a  friend,  and  from  the  preach- 
ing of  Charles  G.  Finney,  i^resident  of  Oberlin  Col- 
lege, in  the  revival  in  Hartford  in  the  winter  of 
1851-1852.  One  noon,  as  he  was  returning  from 
dinner  to  his  railroad  office  work,  he  found  at  the 
post  office  a  letter  from  an  intimate  Stonington 
friend.  He  had  heard  from  this  friend  only  a  few 
days  before  concerning  a  revival  at  home.  He 
opened  the  letter,  read  a  few  lines,  saw  that  it  was  a 
personal  appeal  to  him,  and  at  once  thrust  the  letter 
into  his  pocket,  saying  to  a  companion,  "I  think 
there  must  be  a  big  revival  in  Stonington  if  it  has 
set  my  old  friend  preaching  to  me." 

Young  Trumbull  reached  the  office,  which  was  on 
the  third  floor  of  one  of  the  station  towers,  but  he 
passed  up  the  stairs  to  the  fourth  floor,  and  en- 
tered a  small  map  closet,  where  he  shut  himself  in, 
and  read  the  letter  which  urged  him  to  accept  Christ. 

Henry  was  touched  beyond  expression  by  his 
friend's  letter,  and  even  before  he  had  read  it 
through  he  was  on  his  knees,  brokenly  asking  God's 
forgiveness  for  his  heedless  past.  Under  the  im- 
pulse of  this  experience  he  attended  some  of  the 

[146] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


Finney  meetings,  and  in  the  evangelist's  clear  and 
reasoned  message  he  found  conviction,  and  soon 
united  with  the  First  (Center)  Congregational 
Church  in  Hartford.  It  was  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Trumbull  that  immediately,  even  before  he  had 
united  with  the  Church,  he  began  the  work  of  indi- 
vidual soul-winning  which  he  always  counted  his 
most  enduring  service,  and  entered  as  well  iuto  Sun- 
day-school work  in  the  Morgan  Street  Mission, 
where  he  received  his  first  real  training  in  the  field 
with  which  his  name  was  to  be  identified  in  world- 
wide influence. 

In  1854  Mr.  Trumbull  married  Alice  Cogswell 
Gallaudet,  a  daughter  of  the  founder  of  deaf-mute 
instruction  in  America,  Thomas  Hopkins  Gallaudet. 

He  was  at  this  time  a  business  man.  His  inter- 
ests were  business  interests.  But  the  new  vision  he 
had  of  Christian  service  was  beckoning  him  urgently. 
He  became  superintendent  of  the  Morgan  Street 
Sunday  School ;  he  entered  into  the  local  and  state 
political  life,  and  developed  rapidly  as  a  political 
speaker  in  the  Scott-Pierce  national  campaign  ;  he 
wrote  on  political  subjects  for  the  ^N'ew  York  Tribune, 
and  for  other  papers.  He  formed  a  partnership  for 
the  conduct  of  a  drug  store  in  Hartford  ;  declined  a 
place  on  Governor  Buckingham's  military  staff  as 
colonel ;  was  chosen  for,  but  did  not  take  up,  the 
editoi'ship  of  the  Hartford  Evening  Press  ;  and  then 
went  iuto  a  wool  business  with  his  former  railroad 
president.  That  business  was  for  the  time  wiped 
out  after  the  panic  of  '57,  and  he  was  listening  for 
the  next  call  of  duty. 

[147] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


One  day  he  met  Father  Hawley,  the  city  mission- 
ary, ou  the  street.  The  good  old  man  greeted  him 
with  ;  ''  Trumbull,  I  hear  you're  out  of  business. 
I'm  glad  of  it.  I  hope  the  Lord  will  harrow  up  your 
nest  as  often  as  you  build  it  outside  of  his  field." 

Trumbull's  chief  life  work  was  soon  to  open  for 
him  unmistakably.  In  the  first  State  Sunday-school 
Convention  in  Connecticut,  in  March,  1857,  he  made 
his  first  convention  speech.  After  the  second  con- 
vention, a  little  more  than  a  year  later,  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  State  Association,  he  was  appointed  by 
the  American  Sunday-School  Union  as  missionary 
for  Connecticut,  and  entered  upon  that  work,  Sep- 
tember 1,  1858. 

In  his  first  year  of  missionary  work  he  visited 
eighty  of  the  hundred  and  sixty-one  towns  in  the 
state,  traveling  more  than  ten  thousand  miles  in  that 
field  alone,  visiting,  or  meeting  at  union  gatherings, 
more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  schools,  of  ten  de- 
nominations, writing  more  than  a  thousand  letters, 
and  making  about  three  hundred  public  addresses. 

As  the  Civil  War  came  on  Trumbull  was  deep  in 
his  missionary  work,  but  he  felt  strongly  that  he 
ought  to  be  at  the  front.  His  health  was  so  uncer- 
tain that  he  could  not  succeed  in  passing  the  neces- 
sary physical  examination.  He  was  tall  and  thin, 
black-haired,  and  with  heavy  eyebrows  arching  over 
the  most  wonderful  blue  eyes,  that  could  twinkle 
with  merriment  or  flash  with  excitement  in  their 
intense  and  piercing  gaze.  He  was  fluent  and  mag- 
netic, welcome  on  every  side,  and  a  master  hand  in 
dealing  with  the  human  material  in  which  he 
[148] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


worked.  His  spirit  almost  burued  out  the  life  of 
his  body  with  its  iuteusity.  AloDg  with  his  Sun- 
day-school work,  he  aided  recruitiug  officers  where- 
ever  he  could.  "  You  ask  me  why  I  don't  go  my- 
self," he  would  say.  ''I  tell  you  I  would  go  if  I 
could.  If  a  recruiting  officer  will  take  me,  I'll  en- 
list to-night.  I  am  willing  to  crawl  into  a  hundred- 
pound  Parrott  guu,  as  a  wad,  and  be  fired  off  for 
my  country." 

Quite  unexpectedly,  in  August,  1862,  a  call  came 
to  him  to  be  the  chaplain  of  the  Tenth  Connecticut. 

The  Tenth  was  already  in  the  field,  quartered  at 
New  Berne,  North  Carolina.  IVIr.  Trumbull's  first 
chaplain's  sermon  was  not  preached  to  his  own  regi- 
ment, but  on  Sundaj^,  September  21,  1862,  to  the 
Twenty-second  Connecticut,  then  in  a  rendezvous 
camp  near  Hartford.  "A  small  table,"  he  wrote, 
"had  been  borrowed  from  a  neighboring  house, 
and  set  in  the  open  air  on  the  i)arade  ground,  as  a 
reading  desk  for  me.  A  flag  was  thrown  over  it. 
On  this  rested  a  large  Bible  and  a  hymn  book.  As  I 
took  my  place  behind  it,  in  the  presence  of  the  as- 
sembled regiment,  I  saw  that  an  open  pack  of  cards 
was  on  the  Bible,  as  if  in  mischievous  desire  to  test 
the  new  chaplain.  Without  being  disturbed  or  an- 
noyed, I  quietly  gathered  up  the  cards,  and  put 
them  out  of  sight,  saying  in  a  low  tone  to  the 
colonel,  'Hearts  are  trumps  to-day,  and  I've  a  full 
hand.'"  The  new  chaplain  was  not  new  to  the 
ways  of  men. 

A  chaplain  was  not  readily  accepted  by  the 
soldiers  as  necessarily  a  fellow  man.  Mr.  Trumbull 
[149] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


knew  the  Doble  record  of  many  a  devoted  chaplain, 
and  he  knew  the  ignominious  story  of  the  failure  of 
many  another  to  get  alongside  the  men  and  officers, 
for  one  reason  or  another.  He  decided  two  or  three 
questions  very  early  in  his  chaplaincy.  His  place 
was  with  his  parishioners,  whether  they  were  on  the 
firing  line,  or  in  the  quiet  of  the  chapel  tent.  His 
watchword  was  service.  He  was  highly  sensitive, 
and  often  asserted  that  he  was  physically  timid. 
He  determined  that  he  would  overcome  his  physical 
shrinking  from  danger  and  bloodshed  at  any  cost, 
and  stay  with  his  men.  This  he  did  upon  all  occa- 
sions, on  the  firing  line,  or  with  the  wounded  on 
the  field,  or  in  camp  or  hospital,  or  as  a  prisoner, 
ministering  to  others  in  the  dreaded  places  of  con- 
finement. 

Chaplain  Trumbull  said  in  his  later  years  that  he 
never  felt  so  thoroughly  at  home  anywhere  as  in 
the  army,  for  there  his  natural  energy  and  intensity 
were  not  out  of  place,  as  he  often  felt  they  were  in 
civil  life.  Seized  as  a  spy,  when  he  was  minister- 
ing to  the  wounded  on  the  battle  field  near  Fort 
Wagner,  under  a  flag  of  truce,  he  was  in  three 
prisons  of  the  South,  Columbia,  Charleston  and 
Libby,  and  was  released  as  by  a  miracle. 

The  story  of  his  army  experiences  Doctor  Trum- 
bull has  told  in  three  of  his  books,  "The  Knightly 
Soldier,"  a  biography  of  his  friend  Major  Henry 
Ward  Camp  ;  "  War  Memories  of  an  Army  Chap- 
lain '^  ;  and  "  Shoes  and  Eations  for  a  Long  March," 
a  volume  of  his  army  sermons.  There  is  no  more 
significant  testimony  to  his  work  as  a  chaplain  in 
[  150  ] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


his  three  years  of  service  than  a  little  bundle  of 
faded  papers,  showing  in  a  way  which  is  probably 
unparalleled  in  the  records  of  Civil  War  chaplains, 
the  love  and  respect  his  comrades  had  for  him. 
For  the  officer  of  the  brigade  to  which  his  regi- 
ment belonged  petitioned  the  Department  Com- 
mander to  confer  upon  the  chaplain  the  rank  of 
Major  of  Volunteers  by  Brevet,  for  distinguished 
services  in  camp  and  on  the  field.  That  this  could 
not  be  granted  by  the  War  Department  was  due 
solely  to  the  fact  that  no  law  provided  for  the  pro- 
motion of  chaplains. 

After  the  War,  Trumbull  was  beset  with  invi- 
tations for  addresses,  and  many  calls  came  to  him 
to  abandon  his  Sunday-School  Union  connection, 
among  them  an  offer  from  a  life  insurance  company 
to  act  as  their  New  England  agent  on  a  minimum 
guarantee  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  But 
he  was  not  to  be  diverted  from  the  call  of  the  Sun- 
day school.  He  was  appointed  Normal  Secretary 
of  the  Sunday-School  Union  in  1871,  to  work  in  con- 
ventions and  institutions  in  any  part  of  the  coun- 
try. His  work  in  this  way  became  nation-wide  by 
personal  travel  and  by  his  steady  outflow  of  contri- 
butions to  periodicals. 

In  1875  an  invitation  came  to  him  from  John 
Wanamaker,  who  had  bought  The  Sunday  School 
Times,  to  become  its  editor.  If  he  should  accept, 
the  change  in  the  character  of  his  work  would  be 
radical.  All  his  home  associations  were  in  Hart- 
ford ;  there  he  had  married  ;  there  all  but  one  of  his 
seven  children  had  been  born.  The  Sunday  School 
[151] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


Times  had  only  a  small  circulation,  and  was  an  ex- 
pense to  Mr.  Wanamaker,  who  was  conducting  it 
in  a  spirit  of  philanthropy.  But  when  the  decision 
was  finally  reached  to  go  to  Philadelphia  as  editor 
and  part  owner  of  the  paper,  and  the  move  was 
made,  Mr.  Trumbull  said,  characteristically,  to  his 
wife  : 

''Alice,  if  future  events  should  seem  to  show  that 
I  have  wrecked  my  business  prospects,  and  even  my 
reputation,  by  going  to  Philadelphia,  I  want  you  to 
know  that  I  was  sure,  when  I  left  Hartford,  that  God 
wanted  me  to  go  there.  Whether  I  am  personally 
to  gain  or  lose  by  the  move,  God  knows.  That  God 
clearly  indicated  his  wish  for  me  to  make  the  move, 
I  know.     The  result  I  am  glad  to  leave  with  God." 

How  well  the  move  turned  out  is  now  a  matter  of 
journalistic  history.  In  1877  Trumbull,  with  his 
son-in-law,  John  D.  Wattles,  bought  the  paper  from 
Mr.  Wanamaker,  and  together  the  two  men  gave  it 
a  new  distinction  and  world-wide  circulation  by 
aggressive  editorial  and  business  methods.  Trum- 
bull practically  gave  up  public  speaking,  and 
devoted  himself  to  editing  and  writing.  Nothing 
was  too  good  for  his  paper  or  for  the  Sunday  school. 
He  had  a  genius  for  choosing  and  securing  writers. 
He  spared  no  expense  in  providing  reading  matter. 
He  gathered  around  him  a  staff  of  specialists,  and 
called  to  the  service  of  the  Sunday  school,  through 
his  paper,  the  foremost  Biblical  experts  of  two  con- 
tinents. Bishop  EUicott  of  Gloucester  and  Bristol, 
Chairman  of  the  New  Testament  Company  of  the 
English  Eevision  Committee  said  once  to  him  : 
[  152  ] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


*' That's  a  very  remarkable  paper  you  have,  Mr. 
Trumbull.  We  have  nothing  like  it  in  this  coun- 
try. You  have  a  way  of  securing  contributions  from 
all  directions.  I  believe  you  got  something  from 
me.  I  don't  know  how  you  did  it."  And  that  was 
the  experience  of  many  another  leader  in  Biblical 
scholarship. 

In  1881,  completely  worn  out  in  body  and  mind, 
he  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land 
in  search  of  health.  It  was  on  this  journey  that  he 
turned  aside  from  his  first  plan,  and  went  into  the 
Desert  of  the  Wanderings  on  a  hunt  for  the  until 
then  uncertain  site  of  Kadesh-barnea,  which  he  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  by  determined  and  keen-witted 
handling  of  his  reluctant  and  secretive  Arab  guides. 
His  subsequent  volume  on  the  results  of  that  visit 
gave  him  at  once  a  foremost  place  among  Oriental 
investigators.  That  volume  involved  an  amazing 
exploit  in  what  were  to  him  unfamiliar  fields  of 
scholarship.  He  had  studied  neither  Greek  nor 
Hebrew,  and  no  modern  language  but  his  own,  yet 
he  must  test  his  conclusions  by  the  work  of  scholars 
written  in  various  languages.  He  had  an  intuitive 
sense  of  word-significance  that  enabled  him  to  trace 
key-words  through  their  dictionary  meaning  to  the 
shade  of  meaning  which  they  had  when  used  in 
varied  connections.  In  the  two  years  and  a  half 
during  which  he  was  at  work  on  his  Kadesh-barnea 
book,  he  kept  up  all  his  usual  work  on  the  paper, 
and  examined  more  than  two  thousand  volumes  in 
seven  languages  in  some  of  the  principal  libraries  of 
America,  meanwhile  corresponding  with  European 

[153] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


scholars  with  reference  to  material  in  libraries 
abroad.  And  when  the  book  was  published,  no  less 
a  man  than  Professor  A.  H.  Sayce  of  Oxford,  called 
it  "  a  model  of  what  archseological  research  and 
reasoning  ought  to  be,  one  of  the  few  archaeological 
books  in  which  the  author  knows  how  to  prove  his 
point  by  what  constitutes  a  sound  argument." 

It  is  impossible  here  even  to  touch  upon  all  the 
fields  of  activity  in  which  Henry  Clay  Trumbull 
rendered  conspicuous  service.  He  was  unsparing  of 
himself.  He  shrank  from  vacations.  He  used  to 
say,  "  I  get  my  vacations  sitting  on  my  porch  these 
summer  afternoons  watching  my  neighbors  come 
home  in  ambulances  from  their  summer  vacations." 
He  got  his  rest  in  sleep  and  his  recreation  in  work. 
He  had  time  for  everyone  in  need.  He  counted  a 
friend's  need  as  his  first  call  and  the  extent  of  his 
personal  ministry  to  individuals  no  man  can  pos- 
sibly measure. 

Meanwhile  he  wrote  voluminously,  writing  in  ad- 
dition to  all  his  regular  weekly  departments  in  his 
paper  more  than  thirty  books.  Practically  none  of 
this  writing  was  done  in  seclusion  but  in  the  open 
freedom  of  his  crowded  editorial  rooms,  or  in  the 
small  library  of  his  home  between  the  dining  room 
and  the  drawing-room  with  the  life  of  the  household 
in  no  way  shut  off  from  him  ;  or  on  trains,  or  street 
cars,  or  while  waiting  for  others  to  keep  appoint- 
ments. Much  of  his  work  required  very  extended 
and  patient  research,  yet  he  found  time  for  many 
social  engagements,  avoided  no  church  obligalion, 
but  gave  of  his  best,  and  continuously,  to  his  Bible 

[154] 


HENRY   CLAY  TRUMBULL 


class  aud  teacher's  meetiDgs,  and  to  the  Wednesday 
eveuiug  prayer  meetiug,  aud,  outside  the  church,  to 
learned  societies,  to  conferences  of  college  students, 
and  groups  of  friends,  in  occasional  addresses  aud 
lectures,  and  in  much-sought  personal  counsel.  He 
was  called  upon  for  service  on  important  state  oc- 
casions, as  in  the  making  of  the  address  of  welcome 
to  Grant  upon  his  return  from  his  journey  around 
the  world.  It  was  a  sign  of  his  wide  sympathies 
that  he  was  invited  to  pronounce  the  benediction  in 
a  Jewish  Synagogue  upon  a  memorial  occasion. 

Some  of  Doctor  Trumbull's  most  abiding  work  was 
done  in  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life,  and  some  of 
the  most  fruitful  after  he  was  physically  disabled 
and  confined  much  of  the  time  to  his  room.  His 
most  widely  circulated  book,  "  Individual  Work  for 
Individuals,"  was  written  after  he  could  no  longer 
walk  without  assistance.  He  used  to  say,  with  a 
laugh  over  his  disabilities;  "  I'd  rather  lose  three 
legs  than  one  head  ! ' ' 

Doctor  Trumbull  was  a  recognized  specialist  and 
authority  in  a  great  diversity  of  subjects.  He  wrote 
the  popular  biography  of  war  time  in  the  sixties  ; 
he  wrote  the  authoritative  and  popular  work  on 
Sunday-school  teaching  ;  he  delivered  as  the  Lyman 
Beecher  Lectures  at  Yale  what  came  to  be  recog- 
nized as  the  one  great  history  and  estimate  of  the 
Sunday-school  movement ;  he  studied  minutely  and 
set  forth  voluminously  the  origin  and  meanings  of 
the  varied  forms  of  covenants  known  among  primi- 
tive peoples  ;  he  wrote  the  outstanding  volume  on 
friendship,  a  study  ranging  over  the  influences  affect- 
[155] 


THEIR  CALL  TO  SERVICE 


iDg  the  world's  leadership  in  maDy  ages  and  lands  ; 
it  was  his  study  of  the  question  *'  Is  a  lie  ever  justi- 
fiable ?  ' '  that  cleared  the  atmosphere  for  thousands 
upon  this  question,  which  he  answered  with  an  ir- 
refutable negative  ;  he  put  forth  the  most  fertile  and 
convincing  book  on  individual  soul-winning.  In- 
deed, whatever  he  did  was  done  with  such  spirit 
and  grasp  and  permanent  principles  beneath  it  that 
it  had  in  itself  standardizing  qualities. 

But  with  all  this,  Doctor  Trumbull  was  distinctly 
a  man  among  men.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  he 
interested  them.  He  startled  them,  charmed  them, 
made  them  forget  self,  brought  them  wide-awake, 
face  to  face  with  the  glory  of  living  the  life  of  a  man 
in  the  kingdom  of  God.  John  E.  Mott  said  of  him  : 
"In  his  relationship  with  men,  Doctor  Trumbull 
impressed  me  as  being  more  like  Christ  than  any 
man  I  have  ever  known."  Says  President  Robert 
Ellis  Thompson  :  ' '  He  had  an  instinctive  sense  of 
personality.  When  he  was  speaking  to  anyone,  he 
seemed  to  realize  what  that  person  was,  and  his  way 
of  looking  at  things."  Of  the  effect  of  his  person- 
ality upon  that  of  another,  his  friend  Robert  E. 
Speer,  speaking  for  the  younger  generation,  said  of 
him  :  ' '  How  boundlessly  appreciative  and  generous 
he  was, — seeing  good  where  there  was  no  good  ex- 
cept in  his  seeing.  He  loved  his  own  ideals  which 
he  dreamed  he  saw  in  others,  and  then  by  his  sheer 
love  he  began  to  create  them  in  others.  It  was  but 
our  humiliation  and  our  glory  that  he  was  ever 
finding  in  us  nobleness  which  we  did  not  know  was 
possible  for  us  until  he  loved  it  into  being  in  us." 

[  156  ] 


HENRY  CLAY  TRUMBULL 


Out  of  his  long  experience  Doctor  Trumbull  bore 
this  testimony  to  the  fruitfuluess  of  the  kind  of  serv- 
ice that  increasingly  seemed  to  him  most  needed 
and  most  honored  by  God  among  men. 

"Looking  back  upon  my  work,  in  all  these 
years,  I  can  see  more  direct  results  of  good  through 
my  individual  efforts  with  individuals  than  I  can 
know  of  through  all  my  spoken  words  to  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  persons  in  religious  assemblies,  or 
all  my  written  words  on  the  pages  of  periodicals  or 
books.  And  in  this  I  do  not  think  my  experience 
has  been  wholly  unlike  that  of  many  others  who 
have  had  large  experience  in  both  spheres  of  influ- 
ence. Eeaching  one  person  at  a  time  is  the  best 
way  of  reaching  all  the  world  in  time." 

When,  on  December  8,  1903,  Henry  Clay  Trum- 
bull entered  into  the  larger  life,  there  were  thou- 
sands who  must  have  thanked  God,  as  they  had 
often  thanked  him  before,  that  the  Connecticut  boy 
had  been  obedient  unto  his  heavenly  vision  again 
and  again  in  life's  pivotal  experiences,  and  had  an- 
swered his  clear  call,  not  only  to  distinguished  ac- 
complishment in  that  which  the  world  counts  im- 
portant, but  to  unheralded  service  in  Christ's  name 
to  one  soul  at  a  time  who  needed  light  and  a  friend. 


[157] 


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